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<font face="Verdana" size=2>June 24, 2008<br>
</font><font size=3>
<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/soldz06252008.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/soldz06252008.html<br><br>
</a></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b><i>How
Psychologists Have Abetted the CIA <br><br>
</i></font><h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000">
<b>The Torture Trainers and the American Psychological Association
</b></font></h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>By STEPHEN
SOLDZ <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=6 color="#990000">T</font>
<font face="Verdana" size=2>he
<a href="http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/06/21/cia_sere/print.html">
CIA’s Torture Teachers</a>, psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen
[see
<a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/07/torture200707?printable=true¤tPage=all">
Eban </a>and
<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/13/070813fa_fact_mayer?printable=true">
Mayer </a>for a reminder of their work], are in the news again. In a
front page <i>New York Times</i>
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/washington/22ksm.html?pagewanted=print">
article </a>on the interrogation of
<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/khalid_shaikh_mohammed/index.html?inline=nyt-per">
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed</a>, it is mentioned that the subject of the
story, Deuce Martinez is now employed by the dynamic torture
firm:<br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd>His life today is quiet by comparison with the secret interrogations
of 2002 and 2003. But Mr. Martinez has not turned away entirely from his
old world. He now works for Mitchell & Jessen Associates, a
consulting company run by former military psychologists who advised the
C.I.A. on the use of harsh tactics in the secret program.<br><br>
<dd>His new employer sent Mr. Martinez right back to the agency. For now,
the unlikely interrogator of the man perhaps most responsible for the
horrors of 9/11 teaches other C.I.A. analysts the arcane art of tracking
terrorists.<br><br>
</dl>As
<a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/07/torture200707?printable=true¤tPage=all">
Katherine Eban</a> explaines what was so distinctive about this
firm:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>Mitchell and Jessen reverse-engineered the tactics inflicted on sere
trainees for use on detainees in the global war on terror, according to
psychologists and others with direct knowledge of their activities. The
C.I.A. put them in charge of training interrogators in the brutal
techniques, including “waterboarding,” at its network of “black
sites.”<br><br>
</dl>They exemplified the CIA’s humane treatment of detainees:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>Mitchell had a tougher approach in mind. The C.I.A. interrogators
explained that they were going to become Zubaydah’s “God.” If he refused
to cooperate, he would lose his clothes and his comforts one by one. At
the safe house, the interrogators isolated him. They would enter his room
just once a day to say, “You know what I want,” then leave
again.<br><br>
<dd>As Zubaydah clammed up, Mitchell seemed to conclude that Zubaydah
would talk only when he had been reduced to complete helplessness and
dependence. With that goal in mind, the C.I.A. team began building a
coffin in which they planned to bury the detainee alive.<br><br>
</dl>It seems that the coffin may not in the end have been used.<br><br>
So Deuce Martinez, so according to the Times </i>followed torture
sessions with “rapport-based” session, getting KSM to talk. They report
that he turned down a CIA offer of specialized training in the “enhanced
interrogation techniques,” aka torture, not because he objected but
because he believed his talents lay elsewhere. As Eban explains, that
training would have been with the torture duo:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>Interrogators who were sent for classified training inevitably wound
up in a Mitchell-Jessen “shop,” and some balked at their methods. Instead
of the careful training touted by President Bush, some recruits allegedly
received on-the-job training during brutal interrogations that
effectively unfolded as live demonstrations.<br><br>
</dl>The very fact that he accepted employment with the nation’s premier
torture firm indicates that he had no ethical qualms about the
Mitchell-Jessen approach.<br><br>
The American Psychological Association has a long relationship with
Mitchell and Jessen. Their firm was
<a href="http://security-clearance-job-fairs.techexpousa.com/show_co_profile_and_jobs.cfm?employer_id=11793&show_id=212">
authorized to give APA Continuing Education</a> credits, though rumor
indicates that may no longer be the case:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>Mitchell, Jessen, and Associates, LLC (MJA) is an executive
consulting firm specializing in the area of understanding, predicting,
and improving performance in high-risk and extreme situations. MJA
develops specialized assessment and selection programs for high-risk
occupations, devises and conducts tailored training for related,
high-risk programs, and is additionally approved by the American
Psychological Association to offer continuing professional education for
psychologists.<br><br>
</dl>After the Mitchell-Jessen directed torture of Abu Zubaydah resulted
in numerous false leads that wasted thousands of hours of law enforcement
time, the CIA together with the APA and the Rand Corporation conducted an
invitation-only workshop on the
<a href="http://www.apa.org/ppo/spin/703.html">Science of Deception</a>,
Mitchell, Jessen, and their likely CIA supervisor, Kirk Hubbard, were
<a href="http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/2008/06/23/the-torture-trainers-and-the-american-psychological-association/VF%20-%20Eban:%20Rorschach%20and%20Awe.%20Vanity%20Fair">
invited</a>. Many APA leaders were likely also there, so it strains
credulity that they are not intimately aware of Mitchell and Jessen’s
work. Interestingly, the APA leadership has conveniently “lost” the
attendance list.<br><br>
As a further indication of APA’s connection to the CIA’s torture firm,
one of the
<a href="http://www.spokesmanreview.com/tools/story_pf.asp?ID=204358">
five “governing people”</a> on the torture firm’s Board is former
American Psychological Association President, Joseph Matarazzo. The APA
is intensely disturbed by President Matzrazzo’s possible involvement in
torture as can be gleamed from these ethically-principled
<a href="http://www.spokesmanreview.com/tools/story_pf.asp?ID=204358">
quotes </a>from APA leadership when Matzrazzo’s involvement was revealed
last summer.<br><br>
Then APA President Sharon Brehm: “No comment.”<br><br>
APA Director of the Ethics Office and APA point man on torture and
interrogations: “No comment.”<br><br>
But one official did have a comment, which says everything one needs to
knopw about the ethics of APA leadership.<br><br>
“Dr. Matarazzo was president of APA 18 years ago,” Rhea Farberman, the
organization’s director of public affairs, said in a prepared
statement.<br><br>
“Since that time, he has had no active role in APA governance but has
been actively involved in the American Psychological Foundation (APF),
the charitable giving arm of APA. Dr. Matarazzo currently holds no
governance positions in either APA or APF,” the statement said.<br><br>
Matarazzo’s “professional activities are outside and independent of any
role he has played within APA and APF,” the statement said. “We have no
direct knowledge about the business dealing of Mitchell’s and Jessen’s
company; however, APA’s position is clear – torture or other forms of
cruel or inhuman treatment are always unethical.”<br><br>
Notice the deep concern for Mitchell and Jessen’s and, potentially,
Matarazzo’s, actions expressed in this statement. Notice the (missing)
promise to investigate and, if confirmed, discipline this former APA
President. After all, while “torture is unethical", this former
President's “professional activities” are no concern of the APA.<br><br>
Meanwhile, the Times </i>article informs us that Mitchell &
Jessen Associates is still in the CIA’s good graces. Most likely
they still have the torture contract. And as for the APA, they will most
likely continue to forget about the firm’s connection to them.
Coincidentally, the morning before the new New York Times</i> article
appeared, a member of the APA’s Board sent out to various listserv’s an
odd statement:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>Colleagues,<br><br>
<dd>I wanted to share the fact that APA is aware of the concerns that two
Washington state psychologists were employed by the Department of Defense
to reverse-engineer survival and resistance training (which is designed
to help U.S. military personnel in the event they are captured) for use
in interrogations. These two psychologists are not APA members so are out
of the reach of the APA’s ethics enforcement process but, nevertheless,
APA’s position on inappropriate interrogations techniques is very
clear.<br><br>
<dd>In August of 2007, the APA Council of Representatives passed a
resolution condemning the use of 19 interrogation techniques because they
were unethical, abusive and constituted torture. These condemned
techniques included waterboarding, forced nakedness, sexual humiliation,
stress positions and the use of dogs to intimidate.<br><br>
<dd>In terms of active duty military psychologists being used as trainers
of harsh interrogation techniques, the media reports that I have seen
suggest this was not the case. Rather, these reports have singled out
military psychologists as raising concerns about aggressive interrogation
techniques including waterboarding, forced nakedness and sleep
depravation.<br><br>
</dl>Notice that this esteemed APA board member cannot distinguish
between the Defense Department, the subject of this week’s Senate Armed
Services Committee (SASC) hearings, and the CIA that employed Mitchell
and Jessen. Notice too that she conveniently ignores former APA President
Matarazzo’s possible involvement in Mitchell and Jessens's activities and
also ignores the fact that APA invited Mitchell and Jessen to the
APA-CIA-Rand conference.<br><br>
One also may wonder what “media reports” this Board member read which
featured military psychologists protesting abuse as the main story. After
all, the
<a href="http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cont/node/8845">Associated
Press</a></i> began its first story on the SASC investigation by
stating:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>"Military psychologists were enlisted to help develop more
aggressive interrogation methods, including snarling dogs, forced nudity
and long periods of standing, against terrorism suspects, according to a
Senate investigation."<br><br>
</dl>Further, SASC Chair Carl Levin described in his
<a href="http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/release.cfm?id=299242">opening
statement</a> how:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>"a… senior CIA lawyer, Jonathan Fredman, who was chief counsel
to the CIA’s CounterTerrorism Center, went to GTMO, attended a meeting of
GTMO staff and discussed a memo proposing the use of aggressive
interrogation techniques. That memo had been drafted by a psychologist
and psychiatrist</i> from GTMO who, a couple of weeks earlier, had
attended the training given at Fort Bragg by instructors from the JPRA
SERE school.<br><br>
<dd>While the memo remains classified, minutes from the meeting where it
was discussed are not. Those minutes (TAB 7) clearly show that the focus
of the discussion was aggressive techniques for use against
detainees."<br><br>
</dl>If this esteemed Board member had paid greater attention to these
SASC hearings she would have discovered that they revealed the direct
involvement of several psychologists in planning Guantanamo torture. Col.
Morgan Banks, who had been appointed a member of the APA’s PENS
(<a href="http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/apa_faq_coalition_comments_v12c.pdf">
Psychological Ethics and National Security</a> ethics task force) was
<a href="http://www.senate.gov/%7Earmed_services/statemnt/2008/June/Baumgartner%2006-17-08.pdf">
described by one of the SASC witnesses</a> as requesting training in
“exploitation… of detainees” from the military’s SERE (Survival, Evasion,
resistance, an Escape) program, which administered torture to US
military personnel in case they were captured by a force that doesn’t
respect the Geneva Conventions.<br><br>
But, most chillingly, at the SASC hearings, 63 pages of documents
were released, including the minutes of an October 2, 2002 meeting at
Guantanamo to develop torture strategy and techniques. Psychologist Maj.
John Leso, a member of the Behavioral Science Consultation Team, and the
psychologist described by Levin in the quote above, attended the
meeting.<br><br>
According to these minutes, the BSCT proposed an approach to detainees
based upon the following principles:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>What’s more effective than fear based strategies are camp-wide
environmental strategies designed to disrupt cohesion and communication
among detainees<br><br>
<dd>The environment should foster dependence and compliance<br><br>
<dd>Psychological stress = extremely effective (i.e., sleep deprivation,
withholding food, isolation, loss of time)…<br><br>
<dd>Disrupting the normal camp operations is vital, We need to create an
environment of “controlled chaos”<br><br>
</dl>Evidently, according to this esteemed APA Board member, creating an
environment of “controlled chaos” designed to “foster dependence
and compliance” and utilizing “sleep deprivation, withholding food,
isolation, loss of time” constitutes objecting to torture. I’m sure most
who paid attention to the evidence might conclude otherwise.<br><br>
Unfortunately, to this date the APA has
<a href="http://counterpunch.org/bond05192008.html">ignored</a> multiple
ethics complaints extending back several years against Maj. Leso based
upon his
<a href="http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/353/1/6">documented</a>
<a href="http://www.time.com/time/2006/log/log.pdf">participation</a> in
the
<a href="http://ajobonline.com/journal/j_articles.php?aid=1140">
torture</a> of Mohammed al-Qahtani, Guantanamo prisoner 063. Perhaps this
esteemed colleague, rather than making unsubstantiated claims about
supposed anti-torture activities, will push the organization to
discipline this military psychologist who is documented to have
participated in abuse.<br><br>
<a href="mailto:ssoldz@bgsp.edu">Stephen Soldz</a></b> is a
psychoanalyst, psychologist, public health researcher, and faculty member
at the <a href="http://www.bgsp.edu/">Boston Graduate School of
Psychoanalysis</a>. He maintains the
<a href="http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/ORR.htm">Psychoanalysts for
Peace and Justice</a> web site and the
<a href="http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/">Psyche, Science, and
Society</a> blog. He is a founder of the Coalition for an Ethical
Psychology, one of the organizations leading the struggle to change
American Psychological Association policy on participation in abusive
interrogations.<br><br>
<br><br>
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