US psychologists renew push for ban on assisting military interrogations
Enraged by the US professional psychologists association’s decision not to censure a colleague involved in torture at Guantánamo Bay, members of the association’s legislative body are planning a push to return the issue to its agenda during a biannual meeting that begins Friday.
Members of the council of representatives of the American Psychological Association (APA) acknowledge that adding to the agenda a proposed ban on the giving of professional support to military interrogations is an uphill struggle, and one that reopens a bitter internal debate they have thus far lost.
Still, members told the Guardian on Thursday that they nevertheless planned to introduce a resolution that would enforce a 2008 vote preventing psychologists from participating in military interrogations.
The APA (American Psychological Asso.) has attempted to follow the lead of the American political establishment, both Democrats and Republicans, in sweeping the grim record of officially sanctioned torture under the rug. Obama gave the CIA a blanket get out of jail free card. The psychologist who assisted them want one to. Despite their participation being a clear violation of established norms of professional ethics the APA has tried to dodge the issue.
The APA’s ethics committee has defended the lack of censure by saying it could not amass sufficient first-hand evidence tying Leso to participation in the Qahtani torture case, despite an extensive Senate report linking him to it.
It is encouraging to see a group putting up resistance. Let us wish them success.