Mike Palij wrote: > I realize that some may be suffering from "torture fatigue" but > I just wanted to point out that the APA has a press release on > the role of psychologists in the CIA torture activities, particularly > the military psychologists who "reverse-engineered" SERA > techniques (i.e., James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen), neither > of whom are APA members. The title of the release is: > > SAYING IT AGAIN: PSYCHOLOGISTS MAY NEVER PARTICIPATE IN TORTURE > > see: > http://www.apa.org/releases/editorial-bray.html > > The recommendation they make if a psychologist is ordered to > engage in torture is *DISOBEY THE ORDER*. > > Moral/ethical relativists can have a chuckle at such absurd absolute > rules (I'm sure that they will be able to provide situations where > torture is perfectly acceptable). > >
Well-known moral relativists such as, say, George Bush and Dick Cheney, no doubt. :-) Bray's memo, far from being definitive, equivocates by repeatedly using the term "torture." Why is this an equivocation? Because the people who authorized and used the techniques in question argue that they do not, legally, constitute torture. Whether or not you (or I) personally agree with this assessment, the use of this term still opens the way for psychologists who have participated in these interrogations to respond that they have not violated the APA's "never-torture" policy. All previous APA missives in this matter have equivocated in precisely the same way. The devil is always in the details. Perhaps more interesting than Bray's carefully crafted missive, is the New York Times article that, in all probability, gave rise to it: The Bush Cabinet, including the CIA, did not know that the SERE tactics they decided to use in Guantanamo and elsewhere had been developed by the US military decades ago explicitly to simulate the torture tactics they thought were being used by the Chinese and the Koreans. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/us/politics/22detain.html?_r=2&hp=&pagewanted=all Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 [email protected] http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ "Censorship is the strongest drive in human nature; sex is a weak second." - Phil Kerby, former editor of the /Los Angeles Times/ ========================== --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
