As the American Psychological Association (APA) continues its campaign of obstruction, deflection, and obfuscation in order to keep psychologists participating in "interrogations," aka torture, at Guantanamo and elsewhere, the APA President visited the prison camp there. Afterwards, the APA issued a Press Release to demonstrate to the world the organization's concerns about the human rights violations occurring there:
More after the break.
November 15, 2006
APA President Joins group visiting Guantanamo Bay Naval Station
(WASHINGTON, DC) -- APA President, Dr. Gerald Koocher, was part of a group of national health leaders to visit the Joint Task Force facilities at Guantanamo Bay Cuba on November 13, 2006 upon the invitation of the Assistant Secretary of Defense. The visit afforded an opportunity to review detainee operations at the detention facility for several individuals including the presidents of the American Nurses Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Psychological Association, as well as experts in correctional services and medical ethics. A primary focus of the trip was on health care operations. Participants had an opportunity to hear about and ask questions regarding detainee health care and to tour health-care related facilities. The trip also afforded an opportunity to speak with medical care providers and behavioral consultants, to hear about the roles of medical, mental health, and behavioral consultants at the facility, and to ask questions regarding what mechanisms are in place to ensure that detainees are treated in a safe and humane manner.
Contrast this tepid response to the recent call by US Army Col (Retired) and long-time diplomat Ann Wright to close the gulag down:
Incredibly, at the end of five years of being in the world’s human rights doghouse, the US Congress in October, 2006, again trusted and complied with President Bush’s wishes and passed the Military Commissions Act (MCA). The MCA denies detainees habeas corpus (the right challenge the lawfulness or conditions of detention), denies the presumption of innocence, denies the right to trial within a reasonable time, denies the right to a lawyer of choice and denies the right to challenge and present evidence. The MCA allows the admission of evidence coerced by cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
While co-authoring memos on torture, Presidential legal advisor, now Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales in January, 2002, advised President Bush that a benefit of not applying the Geneva Conventions to detainees coming from Afghanistan and imprisoning the detainees outside the United States would be to make more difficult prosecution of US personnel under the US War Crimes Act. The administration’s "gloves off" attitude toward interrogations resulted in inhumane treatment in Bagram, Kandahar and other prisons in Afghanistan and later in Guantanamo. That abusive environment led to painful incidents at Abu Ghraib, Iraq as Guantanamo prison commander Major General Geoffrey Miller went to Iraq to teach more aggressive interrogation techniques to the interrogators. Gonzalez continued to make prosecution difficult of US personnel involved in prisoner abuse under the War Crimes Act by convincing the US Congress through the Military Commissions Act to provide a free-pass for criminal acts dealing with detainees committed before December 31, 2005.
As a retired US Army Colonel with 29 years of service on active duty and in the US Army Reserves, and as a US diplomat for 16 years, I firmly believe that there must be accountability and responsibility for criminal actions that we know have occurred, whether the perpetrators are in the Pentagon, CIA, Justice or the White House. Speaking as a military officer, our military is not served well by escaping responsibility for criminal acts. Our military soldiers and officers are taught what is legal behavior and what is not. I would think the same distinction also is taught to CIA personnel. When the Bush administration and the Congress retroactively protects those who knowing commit criminal acts, they undermine the "order and discipline" of the military and of the CIA and ultimately undercut the foundations of our rule of law.
I firmly believe that to regain some respect in the international community, for the sake of our national spirit and soul, and for the integrity of the US military, the prison in Guantanamo must be closed and the US military must be removed from adjudicating "enemy combatants" cases. Instead, I believe the federal courts must administer the laws of the United States against persons charged with "terrorist" crimes, as the courts have done in the past. For the United States to ever hope to salvage some modicum of its stature in the area of human rights, the legal process for those accused of criminal, terrorist acts must be transparent and fair. The "Guantanamo process" is neither. I call on the new Congress to acknowledge the capabilities and history of our civilian legal system, abolish the Military Commissions Act, designate the federal courts to hear the cases and close Guantanamo.
On January 11, 2007, the fifth year that detainees from Afghanistan have been in Guantanamo, organizations all over the world will call for Guantanamo to be closed. For the sake of our integrity and conscience, each one of us must take action: organize vigils, show the movie "The Road to Guantanamo"or have readings of "Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom" (www.bordc.org).
Act on January 11 to end torture, stop violations of international law and CLOSE GUANTANAMO! (Check www.witnesstorture.org for events.)
We see in the contrast between Col. Wright's response and that of the APA President the difference between a person committed to human decency and one committed to pandering to power, especially the dark power of the interrogators, at all costs.