For the past decade, former American Psychological Association member Valtin took to these pages to expose the involvement of a number of psychologists in CIA and US military torture and to advocate against that torture and the APA's complicity. Last month, we heard the news:
Outside Psychologists Shielded U.S. Torture Program, Report Finds
By James Risen, The New York Times, July 10, 2015
US torture report: psychologists should no longer aid military, group says
In wake of damning post-9/11 ‘collusion’ report, association says psychologists should not be a part of interrogations at Guantánamo Bay or elsewhere
Spencer Ackerman in New York, The Guardian, 11 July 2015[...] The APA made [former president Nadine] Kaslow available to the Guardian to discuss a damning independent report into what it called the APA’s “collusion” with the US Department of Defense and its aid to the CIA for torture. Psychologists still operate at Guantánamo, as part of the detention facility’s behavioral-health unit.
That 542-page report, by former federal prosecutor David Hoffman, found that numerous senior officials within the APA aided torture by changing internal rules – and collaborated with defense personnel in doing so – to permit psychologists’ assistance. The APA further spent more than a decade denying it had opened the door to abuses; aggressively misrepresenting its collusion to the media and the public; and stifling internal dissent.
[...] Among the leading officials implicated was the APA’s ethics chief, Stephen Behnke. After the APA received the Hoffman report, Behnke departed his post on 8 July.
Press Release and Recommended Actions: Independent Review Cites Collusion Among APA Individuals and Defense Department Officials in Policy on Interrogation TechniquesAnd now we have the vindication:
APA Apologizes for “Deeply Disturbing” Findings and Organizational Failures; Announces Initial Policy and Procedural Actions to Correct Shortcomings
Washington, American Psychological Association, July 10, 2015
Three senior officials lose their jobs at APA after US torture scandal
American Psychological Association framed the departures of its chief executive officer, deputy CEO and communications chief as ‘retirements’ and resignations
By Spencer Ackerman, The Guardian, 14 July 2015
Doctors who colluded in US torture vote to crawl 'out of the dark side'In detail:
American Psychological Association votes almost unanimously to ban members from being involved in Bush-era tactics of torture in wake of damning report
John Barber, The Guardian, 7 August 2015The largest association of psychologists in the United States voted to begin reversing its policy of collusion in torture on Friday by prohibiting members of the American Psychological Association from participating in the interrogation of US prisoners on foreign soil.
What, exactly, does yesterday’s American Psychological Association resolution prohibit?:: ::
By Marty Lederman, Just Security, August 8, 2015
Take a trip back in time with Valtin. This list includes his Daily Kos posts related to the psychological aspects of US torture in general (including techniques from the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape [SERE] program and from the Army Field Manual) and specifically to the struggle to make the APA face up to those facts and to its own direct involvement. You might select a post or three to read:
JUN 14, 2015: Déjà vu on Interrogation "Reform": McCain/Feinstein Amendment Won't Stop Torture
JUN 07, 2015: CIA, RAND Ties Muddy APA Torture "Investigation"
MAR 04, 2015: Did Former Chicago Cop Richard Zuley Participate in Renditions to Guantanamo?
MAY 07, 2014: DoD Deception Hides Fact SERE Torture Techniques Still Allowed for Interrogations
MAR 05, 2014: Court Filings: More Charges of Forced Drugging at Guantanamo
NOV 09, 2013: Blue Ribbon Task Force Says Army Field Manual on Interrogation Allows Torture, Abuse
MAY 02, 2013: The Bush-era Torture Memo Obama Never Rescinded
DEC 01, 2012: Gitmo Death Mystery Deepens with News of Drug Overdose
MAR 10, 2012: Gitmo detainee found hanged with hands tied behind back
AUG 07, 2011: Rumsfeld Lies on Waterboarding Exposed: The Military's "Water Treatment"
FEB 15, 2011: NRC on Research on "War on Terror" Detainees: "A Contemporary Problem"?
DEC 20: Unreported Detainee Deaths at Guantanamo?
DEC 04: "Pharmacologic Waterboarding"? All Gitmo Detainees Dosed with Controversial Drug
OCT 16: Wolfowitz Directive Gave Legal Cover to Detainee Experimentation Program
OCT 02: The story of Guantánamo Prisoner Umar Abdulayev
SEP 20: Gov't Report on Drugging Detainees Is Suppressed
JUL 29: "I really don’t want to live in a life like this."
JUN 10: Senate Intel Committee to Investigate CIA Human Experimentation
JUN 08: NYT Editorial Calls for Investigations on Illegal Torture Experiments
JUN 07: Darkness Visible: Evidence CIA Engaged in Illegal Human Experimentation on Torture
MAY 30: Obama Interrogation Official Linked to U.S. Mind Control Research
MAY 19: APA Scrubs Web Pages Linking It to CIA Torture Workshops
MAY 12: ICRC: Secret Bagram Prison Under Obama, BBC Reports Torture
MAR 17: U.S. Revokes Visa of Irish Anti-Renditions Activist
MAR 05: Waterboarding Too Dangerous, Internal DoD Memo Reveals
FEB 13: Release the 42 CIA Documents on Binyam Mohamed's Torture
JAN 31: Holder/DoJ Cover-up on Torture Memos Investigation: Who is David Margolis?
JAN 24: A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson & the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments (Book Review)
JAN 22: "Suicide" Covers for Murder in More Cases Than You'd Think
JAN 17: Revealed: CIA Cable "Granting Permission" to Destroy Torture Videotapes
JAN 10: Under Auspices of the Army Field Manual, Ongoing Torture Interrogations Continue at Guantanamo
DEC 13: New Documents Explode Myth Gitmo Torture Opposed in Al Qahtani Interrogation
DEC 09: U.S. Used Torture Photos to Intimidate & Threaten Prisoners
DEC 07: UK Revelations Challenge Known Torture Narrative
NOV 29: More re Bagram Torture Diary: Interviews, ACLU Letter, Obama on Secrets
NOV 28: NYT/WashPost: Torture in Obama's Bagram Prison
NOV 23: Who Will Investigate CIA/RAND/APA Torture "Workshop"?
NOV 22: Murder at Guantanamo? The Strange Death of Mohammad Saleh al Hanashi
NOV 11: Bush DOJ Official Daniel Levin "Not Opposed" to Torture Investigations
SEP 16: CIA Experiments on U.S. Soldiers Linked to Torture Program
SEP 02: Torture Cover-Up: Abu Zubaydah's Psychological Profile and Why It Was Written
AUG 15: Expose: Expanding the Investigation into SERE Torture, Part 2
AUG 14: NYT Misses Full Story on Mitchell-Jessen
AUG 09: UN Officer to APA: All Psychologists Must Leave Gitmo! (b/c of torture)
AUG 06: When Healers Harm: Rights Groups Call for Investigation of Guantanamo Psychologist
JUL 30: "So Ordered": U.S. to Release Mohammed Jawad After Six Years False Imprisonment
JUL 26: Expose: Former Top Navy Psychologist Involved in Pre-9/11 Prisoner Abuse Case
JUL 22: Flash: SERE Psychologists Still Used in Special Ops Interrogations and Detention
JUL 20: Spinning Torture: More Details on Mitchell-Jessen-CIA-FBI Torture Imbroglio
JUL 06: Torture News Roundup: Farewell (for awhile)
JUL 01: Beyond Yoo: Army Field Manual Allows Torture with Drugs
JUN 26: New Evidence: Top Psychologists Implicated In Torture
JUN 22: Torture News Roundup: U.S. Held al-Queda Torture Victim at Gitmo for 7 Years
JUN 19: Torture Architects Mitchell & Jessen on the Road to Maui
JUN 13: No Accountability: Two Generals Who Enabled Torture
JUN 11: Starvation, Suicide, Torture, Not Terrorism, Is Guantanamo Legacy
MAY 31: Weekly Torture Round-up: Picturegate, MI5, Torturing Doctors
MAY 18: "Bad Apples"? The Interrogation of Prisoner #151363
MAY 16: The Zubaydah Torture "Experiment": Connections to al-Libi?
MAY 10: Torture News Roundup: Breaking: al-Libi Found Dead in Libyan Prison
MAY 09: Sleight of Hand Over Military Commissions Proposal?
MAY 04: SERE Psychologist ("Master of the Mind F*ck") NPR Interview
APR 30: Released FBI Memo Documents Bush Ordering Torture
APR 26: WashPo Helps JPRA Cover Up Complicity in Torture Program
APR 20: "Torture(d) Moralizing" & Other Fairy Tales
APR 17: Secrets Revealed: How OLC/SERE Lied in Bybee Memo
APR 16: Obama & Holder Trash Nuremberg Principles
APR 14: Submitting Evidence to the Spanish Court on U.S. Torture Plans
APR 10: Does Torture "Work"?
MAR 30: No Prosecutions, No Accountability: Another Day in Torture USA
MAR 27: SASC Full Declassified Report Due Out, Levin to Call for DOJ Referral
MAR 22: Introducing DKos Sunday Weekly Torture "Round-up"
MAR 17: Liberal "Hero" Jon Stewart Cozies Up to War Criminal Myers
MAR 15: Leaked! International Red Cross Report on CIA Torture
MAR 09: Torturers To Binyam: "We're going to change your brain"
MAR 04: Birth of a Whitewash: Who Testified at Leahy Torture Hearings?
MAR 02: From DoJ to CIA: Wiretapping, Torture, Stonewalling & Obstruction of Justice
FEB 22: Released from Guantanamo, Binyam Mohamed Tortured to the End
FEB 21: Exclusive: Minutes from a Torturers' Meeting at Guantanamo
FEB 09: Obama Reneges on Justice for Torture Victims, Embraces Bush Secrecy Doctrine
FEB 02: Obama Backpedals on Torture, Renditions, State Secrecy
JAN 38: CCR: Close Torture Loopholes in Army Field Manual
JAN 28: The Foreign Press, Salon.com, & the Army Field Manual
JAN 26: Medical Ethics and Torture
JAN 25: Rumsfeld's Revenge: Army Field Manual to Allow Torture
JAN 22: Confusion in the Press on Torture Plans
JAN 21: Obama's Executive Orders on Gitmo & the Prosecutions Issue
JAN 19: Firedoglake Picks Up Army Field Manual Torture Story
JAN 18: Lancet Study Confirms Millions Died From "Shock Therapy"
JAN 14: Top Bush Official Admits "We Tortured Qahtani"
JAN 07: How the U.S. Army's Field Manual Codified Torture -- and Still Does
JAN 05: How GOP Plans to Defend BushCo on Torture
DEC 11: Senate Report Nails Rumsfeld, Sets Up War Crimes Trial
DEC 05: APA Presidential Election's Dismal Results
DEC 03: Whence Torture? A SERE Critic, Circa 1956
DEC 01: Vermont State Hospital Implicated in CIA Mind Control Experiments
NOV 28: DKos: Help APA Anti-Torture Candidate Win Election
NOV 25: Anti-Torture Activists Chase Brennan from CIA Post
NOV 19: A Woman Buried Alive: Update on the Siddiqui Case
NOV 17: The Forgotten Men: New UC Report on "Guantanamo and its Aftermath"
NOV 13: A Rare Look at Insider Politics (for Those Fighting Torture)
NOV 12: APA Advisory Group Examines New Interrogations Policy
OCT 30: Gitmo "Confession" Thrown Out; CIA Wins Torture Secrecy Ruling
OCT 26: Unit 731: Biological Warfare & Human Medical Experimentation
OCT 22: "Interrogation Psychologists" and the Allure of "National Security Psychology"
OCT 15: Analysis: Secret Memos Show White House Approved CIA Torture
OCT 12: Major New Torture Archive Gives 1st Peek at SERE SOP
OCT 08: Battle Over Habeas -- Torture Inc. Comes to America
OCT 02: Big Victory: APA Informs Bush -- No Psychologists at Military Interrogations
OCT 01: A Colonel Takes on the Torturers: More on SERE Torture Details
SEP 25: SASC Hits Paydirt: Full Story on SERE Torture Timeline Emerges
SEP 22: More Cover-up? Senate Committee Renews Hearings on SERE Torture
SEP 17: Victory! Insurgent Psychologists Win Key Anti-Torture Vote
SEP 13: Monkey Business on APA Anti-Torture Referendum?
AUG 13: APA Referendum & the Prisons Issue: Vignettes from Hell
AUG 11: APA Bureaucrats Try to Torpedo Anti-Torture Resolution
AUG 06: Torture Trial Ends: Reflections on the Hamdan Verdict
AUG 03: Why the Silence on Real Torture Timeline?
JUL 30: Is APA Leadership Splintering Over Torture Issue?
JUL 14: Physicians, Psychologists & the Problem of "The Dark Side"
JUL 06: How NYT Distorted My Daily Kos Diary on SERE Torture
JUN 25: Nuts & Bolts: How U.S. Organized Torture Program
JUN 23: Media & Gov't Torture Cover-up: Sen. Levin, Release the 12/01 SERE Docs
JUN 16: At Last! Senate Hearings Tackle SERE-Inspired Torture Program
MAY 21: Lying for the Torturers: The APA School of Falsification
MAY 14: April 30, 2004... and now where are we?
MAY 05: Psychologist "Swat Team" Serves Bush's Torture Gulag
APR 27: Darkness Fell (An Answer to "Darkness Falls")
APR 26: The Torture Election: Fighting for the Soul of the APA
APR 23: New Calls for Investigations on Drugging Detainees
APR 13: The Biggest Torture Program in U.S. History
APR 08: Submissions to APA Ethics Casebook on Interrogation
MAR 09: Why Bush Defends Secret Torture Techniques
MAR 02: New APA Vote: Psychologists and the Realpolitik of Torture
FEB 25: UK Soldier Spills Beans on Renditions
FEB 10: A Tale of Two Letters, or On Moral Courage and Moral Cowardice
JAN 27: Why I'm Leaving APA (A Special Kind of GBCW Diary)
JAN 23: Down the Rabbit Hole: HIV, Guantanamo, "Dirty Bombers" as U.S. Becomes Torture State
JAN 16: Law and Ethics for Non-Persons in U.S. Gulag
JAN 13: Nobel Peace Prize Winners Support Calif. Bill to Stop Torture
JAN 09: Support California Bill to Stop U.S. Torture Collaboration by M.D.s & Psychologists
JAN 02: "Battlefield of the Mind": U.S. Behavioral Specialists "Deprogram" Iraqi Prisoners
DEC 10: No Moral Compass: Pelosi, Democrats, & the WP Revelations
DEC 04: Another Major Guantanamo Document Leaked
DEC 01: APA on the Road to Damascus?
NOV 15: Consequences of Gitmo SOP Leak: the Pentagon Replies (w/poll)
OCT 10: Beware Misdirection on Torture Scandal (The "DDD" Story)
SEP 26: Torture Critics, Ethics Games, & Institutional Corruption
SEP 21: CIA PR Campaign a Pack of Lies
SEP 17: Australian Psychologists Protest U.S. Torture -- Sign Their Petition!
SEP 09: What Torture Foes Can Learn from History of the Abolitionist Movement
SEP 07: NYT on Lancet letter: "Doctors Decry Guantanamo Treatment"
SEP 05: The Empire Strikes Back: Psychology Tops Lash Out at Anti-Torture Opponents
AUG 29: My APA Paper on Isolation, Sensory Deprivation & Sensory Overload
AUG 26: Murkier and Murkier: "The Ongoing Medicalization of Torture"
AUG 23: Backlash Grows on Psychologist Torture Resolution
AUG 20: Postmortem: APA Torture Resolution Puzzle (Bookmark this)
AUG 18: Edge of the Precipice: APA Meets the Devil's Details
AUG 14: Ex-APA President Part of Torture-linked Firm -- APA: See No Evil, Hear No Evil
AUG 13: Inside Secret CIA Interrogation Program
AUG 12: Moment of Truth Arrives: APA & Participation in U.S. Torture
AUG 05: Operation Phoenix Reborn: New Yorker Expose on CIA "Black Sites"
AUG 04: "Enhanced" Interrogation Techniques & the Risk of Criminality
AUG 01: MKULTRA Redux: New CIA Scandal Heads for Hearings
JUL 29: Will APA Psychology Convention Endorse Indefinite Detention?
JUL 18: Center of the Storm: Fight to Expose the Torture Planners
JUL 17: Vanity Fair Article Links CIA/SERE Psychologists to Torture
JUL 06: DKos Exclusive: Psychologist Participation in Torture
JUN 25: Torture Wars: Dispatch from the Front
JUN 21: Psychologists: Open Letter to APA President -- Change Course on APA Interrogation Policy
JUN 18: Insider Politics of the Torture Chamber
JUN 16: Physicians Take on Psychologists over Interrogations Issue
JUN 05: Sec. Gates: Stop SERE-type Torture! Drop Appendix M from Army Field Manual
MAY 30: Torture Revelations Spur Senate Hearings
MAY 27: Shocking: 2003 CIA "Workshop" Plots New Torture Plans
MAY 20: Did Gonzales Skip Out on SERE/Torture Training?
MAY 13: A Letter to Dr. Sharon Stephens Brehm, APA President
MAY 09: Heart of Darkness: Sensory Deprivation & U.S. Torture -- Where From Here?
MAY 06: Thanks to All Supporting Campaign to Pressure APA on Interrogations
APR 30: (Round 2) Stop Torture Campaign -- Netroots Can Play Special Role
APR 29: Action Diary! Your help needed RIGHT NOW to stop torture
APR 25: Historian Alfred McCoy Speaks on U.S. Torture Program (video)
APR 18: Major call for Congress to investigate CIA/Pentagon Torture
APR 08: Deconstructing Gelles: A Documentary Record of a Torture Apologist
MAR 25: Just in: Military Psychologists Oppose Torture Moratorium
MAR 21: A Moral Nothingness: Red Cross Blows Whistle on U.S. Torture
MAR 09: Government admits interrogation tapes "missing" in Padilla case
FEB 09: NEW Documents Show U.S. Torture Was Planned Long Ago
JAN 08: Washington Monthly Article Slams APA on Torture
JAN 07: FBI & American Psych. Association Attack Patient Confidentiality
DEC 02: Newsweek: Gov't. motion to silence Padilla defenseAnd first, but not at all least:
NOV 19: Torture 101: CIA text on teaching "coercive interrogation"
OCT 11: Inside the Courts of Homeland Security -- Part 1
SEP 18: WTF? New Army Interrogation Manual Promotes Torture!
SEP 16: Frankenstein's Children: Modern Torture's Scientific Bible
SEP 03: More on the Most Dominant Political Issue of Our Time: Torture
AUG 20: American Psychologists Save Torture for BushCo (or How to Read Bullshit Resolutions)
JUN 07, 2006Fortunately for us, with Valtin's tireless writings here as well as at his own blog Invictus, that look became much less rare. This collection is not even the entirety of his posting history; he has been righteously eloquent on other matters related and not as well. Though the APA's actions to come to grips with the reality of torture may be incomplete, and though the struggle for justice continues, I hope Valtin can take satisfaction in the events of the past month. May this post serve as an expression of gratitude to him for his exemplary contributions to our republic and to humanity.
Civil War in Psychology over Abetting U.S. Torture
This diary will give you a rare look into the internal politics of the mainstream psychological associations, as it details the political struggle over how much the mental health establishment will serve Bush's torture policy.
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