[Ppnews] Psychology and Coercive Interrogations in Historical Perspective

[Political Prisoner News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/soldz04132007.html

April 13, 2007


Psychology and Coercive Interrogations in Historical Perspective


Aid and Comfort for Torturers

By STEPHEN SOLDZ

On January 24, 2003, National Guardsman Sean 
Baker, stationed as a military policeman at 
Guantanamo detention center, volunteered to be a 
mock prisoner, donning an orange suit and 
refusing to leave his cell as part of a training 
exercise. As planned, an Immediate Reaction Force 
team of MPs attempted to extract him from the 
cell. When he uttered the code word, "red," 
indicating that this was a drill and that he'd 
had enough, one of the MPs "forced my head down 
against the steel floor and was sort of just 
grinding it into the floor. The individual then, 
when I picked up my head and said, 'Red,' slammed 
my head down against the floor," says Baker. "I 
was so afraid, I groaned out, 'I'm a U.S. 
soldier.' And when I said that, he slammed my 
head again, one more time against the floor. And 
I groaned out one more time, I said, 'I'm a U.S. 
soldier.' And I heard them say, 'Whoa, whoa, 
whoa,' ". Even though, unlike if Baker had been a 
real prisoner, the "extraction" was called off 
part-way through, he was diagnosed with traumatic 
brain injury and was left with permanent 
injuries, including frequent epileptic-style seizures.

When asked what would have happened if he had 
been a real detainee, Baker told CBS's 60 
Minutes: "I think they would have busted him up. 
I've seen detainees come outta there with blood 
on 'em. If there wasn't someone to say, 'I'm a 
U.S. soldier,' if you were speaking Arabic or 
Pashto or Urdu or some other language in the 
camp, we may never know what would have happened to that individual."

This detention facility is one of the 
environments in which psychologists serve as 
consultants to interrogations. The American 
Psychological Association sees no ethical 
problems with psychologists serving there.

We psychoanalysts know that understanding 
requires a historical perspective. The abuses 
being perpetrated on America's detainees in the 
War of Terror, and psychologists' roles in those abuses have a long history.

About 60 years ago, as the Cold War shifted into 
high gear, people in the American government, 
most notably the Central Intelligence Agency 
(CIA), became concerned that the Communist 
enemies had developed specialized techniques for 
mind control. They observed senior Soviet 
officials and others confessing to crimes they 
likely had not committed. They were shocked by 
the number of American Korean War soldiers who 
collaborated with their captors and denounced the 
United States. At first defensively, and then as 
an offensive tool, the CIA undertook what became 
a 25-year program of research into mind control 
techniques under a variety of names, including, 
most notoriously MKULTRA. While time precludes an 
extensive review of this program, [the December 
1977 APA Monitor contains an account of some of 
these activities] two components are of special 
relevance to today's topic. 1) For years the 
Agency, as the CIA is known, searched for a magic 
"truth serum" that would allow them to get 
captives to reveal their secrets; and 2) the CIA 
and the military funded extensive research into 
potentially effective interrogation techniques, 
including the possible use of hypnosis, of drugs, 
of isolation and extreme sensory deprivation, of brain stimulation, etc..

Some of the knowledge developed during MKULTRA 
and related programs were incorporated into the 
CIA's KUBARK interrogation Manual in 1963. 
Similar techniques were contained in CIA training 
manuals distributed throughout Latin America in 
the 1970's and 80's. The only one of these 
manuals which became public is one used to train 
in Honduras in 1983, as was revealed in a January 
1997 Baltimore Sun article entitled: "Torture was 
taught by CIA; Declassified manual details the 
methods used in Honduras; Agency denials refuted"

The manual advises an interrogator to "manipulate 
the subject's environment, to create unpleasant or intolerable situations."
 From this Baltimore Sun article:

""While we do not stress the use of coercive 
techniques, we do want to make you aware of them 
and the proper way to use them," the manual's 
introduction states. The manual says such methods 
are justified when subjects have been trained to resist noncoercive measures.

Forms of coercion explained in the interrogation 
manual include: Inflicting pain or the threat of 
pain: "The threat to inflict pain may trigger 
fears more damaging than the immediate sensation 
of pain. In fact, most people underestimate their capacity to withstand pain."

A later section states: "The pain which is being 
inflicted upon him from outside himself may 
actually intensify his will to resist. On the 
other hand, pain which he feels he is inflicting 
upon himself is more likely to sap his resistance. "

Those who have examined practices at US detention 
facilities in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo 
have identified, as a 2005 126 page report from 
Physicians for Human Rights entitled Break Them 
Down describes in its subtitle: "Systematic Use 
of Psychological Torture by US Forces."

The practice of Psychological Torture in US facilities includes:

Prolonged Isolation for months, even years.

Sleep Deprivation, sometimes allowing as little 
as two hours a night, for prolonged periods

Sensory Distortion including sensory deprivation 
(masks, goggles, etc.), very loud music; and 
hypothermia (turning air conditioning on high)

Sexual and Cultural Humiliation -- forced 
urination on self; forced nakedness; sexual 
humiliation; religious humiliation (Koran's being 
thrown around); being led naked on a leash. Being 
forced to bark like a dog. [As regards religious 
humiliation, former Guantanamo Chaplain James Yee 
was quoted as stating in a recent lecture: " 
'Guantanamo Bay's secret weapon,' is 'the use of 
Islam against prisoners to break them.' He said 
prisoners were forced to prostrate in the center 
of a circle inscribed with a pentagram by a guard 
who yelled, 'Satan is your God now, not Allah.' 
He said female interrogators 'exploit(ed) 
conservative Islamic etiquette" by undressing 
before interrogating detainees and "giving lap dances" to unnerve them.

Yee said the Quran, believed by Muslims to be the 
literal word of God, was 'desecrated in many 
different ways,' such as being urinated upon and 'tossed on the floor.' "]

These purely psychological techniques are often 
combined with another component:

Self-inflicted pain--the infamous "stress 
positions", including chaining in positions for 
hours on end and the infamous Abu Ghraib picture 
of a detainee balancing on a box with arms 
outstretched and electrodes attached (this 
technique is referred to in the torture 
literature as the "Vietnam") [Remember, from the 
Honduras interrogation manual: 'On the other 
hand, pain which he feels he is inflicting upon 
himself is more likely to sap his resistance.']

Additionally, there have been repeated claims by 
detainees that they were subjected to drugging. 
[Remember that developing drugs for use in 
interrogations was a key element of the CIA's 
MKULTRA research.] Thus, as one example out of 
many, on March 2, 2007, the Sydney Morning Herald 
contained an account of Australian detainee David 
Hicks in US custody. In addition to the beatings, 
the isolation, the cultural assaults, the 
self-inflicted pain, there was this line: "He was 
also injected with a substance that 'made my head feel strange.' "

Many of these techniques, in reduced form, were 
used in the military's SERE (Survival, Evasion, 
Resistance, Escape) program to teach American 
officers counter-resistance training. According 
to several journalists, these methods were 
"reverse-engineered" and exported to Guantanamo 
and elsewhere through training in SERE 
techniques. Thus Salon's Mark Benjamin, in an 
article entitled "Torture Teachers" documents 
that SERE techniques were indeed taught to 
interrogators at Guantanamo. Benjamin goes on to state:

"There are striking similarities between the 
reported detainee abuse at both Guantánamo and 
Abu Ghraib and the techniques used on soldiers 
going through SERE school, including forced 
nudity, stress positions, isolation, sleep 
deprivation, sexual humiliation and exhaustion 
from exercise. The unnamed interrogation chief 
from Guantánamo notes in his statement that on 
his watch detainees were exposed to loud music 
and yelling. 'The rule on volume," he said, "was 
that it should not be so loud that it would blow 
the detainees' ears out.' The chief claimed 
interrogators would crank up the air conditioning 
to make detainees cold, and that one prisoner was 
also given a "lap dance" by a female interrogator 
'to use sexual tension in an attempt to break a detainee.' "

While the role of psychologists at Guantanamo and 
elsewhere is still murky, due to the extreme 
secrecy surrounding it, more and more evidence is 
dribbling out. It increasingly looks like key 
agents in this were psychologists and, initially, 
psychiatrists, in so-called Behavioral Science 
Consultation Teams (BSCT) that participated in selected interrogations.

Mohammed al-Qahtani was interrogated over many 
months at Guantanamo. BSCT Psychologist Major 
John Leso was present during this interrogation.

During al-Qahtani's interrogation he was 
subjected to extreme cold to the point where his 
heart slowed and he was hospitalized (he was then 
warmed up and again subjected to extreme cold), 
he was injected with several bags of saline 
solution while being strapped to a table until he 
urinated on himself, and he was forced to bark 
like a dog; we are not told what was done to him 
to get him to bark. He required cardiac 
monitoring after 60 days in a cell flooded with 
artificial light, being questioned for 48 out of 
54 days for 20 hours at a time. He was briefly 
hospitalized and immediately returned for continued interrogation.

By the way, the US government insists that 
al-Qahtani was treated "humanely," as are, it 
claims, all the Guantanamo detainees. And the 
American Psychological Association leadership has 
repeatedly claimed that the BSCT psychologists 
participate in interrogations to prevent abuse, 
to ensure "that such processes are safe and 
ethical for all participants". They have never 
commented publicly on the interrogation 
involvement of Major Leso, an APA member, not 
have they taken any steps whatsoever to 
investigate the repeated claims that BSCT 
psychologists are in Guantanamo to teach torture 
techniques, not to prevent their use.

In July 2005, the New Yorker published an article 
by Jane Mayer entitled The Experiment. In it she 
presents the evidence available at that time on 
SERE and its role in the interrogation process at 
Guantanamo. She quotes Baher Azmy, an attorney 
for one of the detainees whose client reported 
physical brutality, sexual humiliation, and being 
injected with debilitating drugs:

Attorney Azmy told Mayer:

"These psychological gambits are obviously not 
isolated events. They're prevalent and 
systematic. They're tried, measured, and charted. 
These are ways to humiliate and disorient the 
detainees. The whole place appears to be one giant human experiment."

The prominent Middle East scholar Juan Cole, on 
his Informed Comment blog posted an email from a former military officer:

"I'm a former US [military officer], and had the 
'pleasure' of attending SERE school.

The course I attended . . . [had] a mock POW 
camp, where we had a chance to be prisoners for 
2-3 days. The camp is also used as a training 
tool for CI [counter-intelligence], interrogators, etc.

I'm sure you must also realize that Gitmo must be 
being used as a "laboratory" for all these 
psychological manipulation techniques by the CI guys. Absolutely sickening . ..

1. My gut feeling tells me that the SERE camps 
were 'laboratories' and part of the training 
program for military counter-intelligence and 
interrogator personnel. I heard this anecdotally as far as the training goes.

2. Looking at Gitmo in the 'big picture', you 
have to wonder why it is still in operation 
though they know so many are innocent of major 
charges. A look through history at the various 
'experimentation' programs of the DOD gives a 
ready answer. The camp provides a major 
opportunity to expose a population to various 
psychological control techniques. Look at some of 
the stuff that has become public, and this 
becomes even more apparent. Especially the 
sensory deprivation--not only sleep, but there 
are the photos of inmates in gas masks or 
sight/hearing/smell deprivation setups. There has 
already been voluminous research into sensory 
deprivation, and it seems this is another good opportunity for more."

PENS Task Force

As word spread about the involvement of health 
professionals, psychologists included, in abusive 
interrogations, pressure built on professional 
associations to do something about the situation. 
The American Psychological Association decided to 
form a Presidential Task Force on Psychological 
Ethics and National Security (PENS). Strangely, 
the APA did not release the names of PEN task 
force to the APA membership, nor were the names 
included in the report. The PENS membership was 
first published in the press in full by Mark 
Benjamin of Salon last July, more than a year 
after the PENS report was released; Benjamin got 
the names from a Congressional source, not the APA.

Let's look at a few of the members, as described 
in their official APA biographical statements:

Colonel Morgan Banks is currently the Command 
Psychologist and Chief of the Psychological 
Applications Directorate of the U.S. Army Special 
Operations Command (USASOC). " He is the senior 
Army Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape 
(SERE) Psychologist, responsible for the training 
and oversight of all Army SERE Psychologists, who 
include those involved in SERE training. He 
provides technical support and consultation to 
all Army psychologists providing interrogation 
support, and his office currently provides the 
only Army training for psychologists in 
repatriation planning and execution, 
interrogation support, and behavioral profiling."

Robert A. Fein is currently a consultant to the 
Directorate for Behavioral Sciences of the 
Department of Defense Counterintelligence Field 
Activity (CIFA), the DOD Criminal Investigative 
Task Force (CITF), and the U.S. Secret Service's 
National Threat Assessment Center. He also serves 
as a member of the Intelligence Science Board.

Colonel Larry C. James In 2003, he was the Chief 
Psychologist for the Joint Intelligence Group at 
GTMO, Cuba, and in 2004 he was the Director, 
Behavioral Science Unit, Joint Interrogation and 
Debriefing Center at Abu Ghraib, Iraq. Col. James 
was assigned to Iraq to develop legal and ethical 
policies consistent with the Geneva Convention 
Guidelines and the APA Ethics Code in response to the abuse scandal.

Captain Bryce E. Lefever as assigned to the 
Navy's Survival Evasion Resistance Escape (SERE) 
School from 1990 to 1993. He served with Navy 
Special Forces from 1998 to 2003 and was deployed 
as the Joint Special Forces Task Force 
psychologist to Afghanistan in 2002, where he 
lectured to interrogators and was consulted on 
various interrogation techniques. Capt. Lefever 
has been deployed to many parts of the world 
during his career including Haiti, Panama, 
Israel, Afghanistan, Italy, Bahrain, Crete, 
Puerto Rico, Iceland, Antarctica, and Spain where 
he has lectured on Brainwashing: The Method of Forceful Interrogation.

R. Scott Shumate has worked for the federal 
government in highly classified positions that 
have required him to travel extensively and live 
overseas. He has performed many of his duties 
under highly stressful and difficult 
circumstances. In May of 2003, Dr. Shumate 
accepted a senior position in the Department of 
Defense as the Director of Behavioral Science for 
the Counterintelligence Field Activity. DOD/CIFA 
is responsible for support to offensive and 
defensive counterintelligence (CI) efforts. His 
team of renowned forensic psychologists are 
engaged in risk assessments of the Guantanamo Bay Detainees.

Also on the PENS taskforce was Michael Gelles. 
Dr. Gelles was the chief psychologist for the 
Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Dr. Gelles 
was at Guantanamo in order to develop evidence 
for potential criminal prosecution of detainees. 
As he witnessed the treatment of detainees, he 
was outraged and became a whistleblower. 
According to a Boston Globe article "Dr. Michael 
Gelles, completed a study of Guantánamo 
interrogations in December 2003 that included 
extracts of detainee interrogation logs. Gelles 
reported to the service director, David Brant, 
that interrogators were using 'abusive techniques 
and coercive psychological procedures.'" As such, 
Dr. Gelles is one of the true heroes of this 
rather sordid tale. At the same time, however, it 
is at least debateable for two reasons whether he 
should have been on the PENS taskforce. First, as 
a member of the military hierarchy he was subject 
to military discipline, rather than being a free 
agent; like the other PENS members from the 
military and intelligence services, his career 
could be directly affected by the outcome of the 
PENS process. [Just ask the heroic Navy JAG 
attorney, Lt. Commander Charles Swift who won a 
landmark Supreme Court victory against the 
Guantanamo military tribunals in the Hamdan case, 
only to be forced to retire after over 20 years 
of sevice.] Further, as a psychologist and 
military interrogator, Dr. Gelles was in no 
position to seriously consider the view that 
involvement in interrogations was, in itself, unethical.

Not surprisingly, given its composition, the PENS report concluded:

"The Task Force stated that it is consistent with 
the APA Ethics Code for psychologists to serve in 
consultative roles to interrogation and 
information-gathering processes for national security-related purposes."

In handling this report, the APA did not follow 
normal procedures and did not present it to the 
elected Council of Representatives for discussion 
and approval. Rather, within days it was 
presented to and approved by the APA Board, circumventing Council.

Other Professional Associations

In contrast, the American Medical Association, in 
June 2006 adopted: "Physicians must neither 
conduct nor directly participate in an 
interrogation, because a role as 
physician-interrogator undermines the physician's 
role as healer and thereby erodes trust in the 
individual physician-interrogator and in the medical profession."

In June, 2005, the American Psychiatric 
Association expressed concern over the reports of 
psychiatrist involvement in abuses at Guantanamo:

"The American Psychiatric Association is troubled 
by recent reports regarding alleged violations of 
professional medical ethics by psychiatrists at 
Guantanamo Bay. APA is reviewing issues related 
to psychiatry and interrogation procedures and 
plans to develop a specific policy statement in the near future."

I have been unable to find one mention of concern 
regarding reports of involvement of psychologists 
in Guantanamo abuses by the American 
Psychological Association or any of its recent 
leadership. Rather, in February 2006, then President Gerald Koocher wrote:

"A number of opportunistic commentators 
masquerading as scholars have continued to report 
on alleged abuses by mental health professionals."

In May, 2006 the American Psychiatric Association 
went on to ban all direct participation in interrogations by psychiatrists:

"No psychiatrist should participate directly in 
the interrogation of person[s] held in custody by 
military or civilian investigative or law 
enforcement authorities, whether in the United States or elsewhere."

American Psychiatric Association President Steven 
S. Sharfstein devoted a significant portion of 
his 2006 Presidential Address to this issue:

"We must exercise vigilance over our other core 
values. When I read in the New England Journal of 
Medicine about psychiatrists participating in the 
interrogation of Guantanamo detainees, I wrote to 
the Assistant Secretary for Health in the 
Department of Defense expressing serious concern 
about this practice. In mid-October I found 
myself on a Navy jet out of Andrews Air Force 
Base on a 3-hour trip to Guantanamo Bay. We were 
briefed thoroughly on interrogation methods and 
the involvement of Behavioral Science Consultation Teams in the process.

After returning to Andrews, we began a spirited 
3-hour discussion over dinner. I found myself 
looking eye to eye with top Pentagon brass -- 
they are much taller than I am, but we were 
sitting down. I told the generals that 
psychiatrists will not participate in the 
interrogation of persons held in custody. 
Psychologists, by contrast, had issued a position 
statement allowing consultations in interrogations.

If you were ever wondering what makes us 
different from psychologists, here it is. This is 
a paramount challenge to our ethics and our 
Hippocratic training. Judging from the record of 
the actual treatment of detainees, it is the 
thinnest of thin lines that separates such 
consultation from involvement in facilitating 
deception and cruel and degrading treatment. 
Innocent people being released from 
Guantanamo-people who never were our enemies and 
had no useful information in the War on 
Terror-are returning to their homes and families 
bearing terrible internal scars. Our profession 
is lost if we play any role in inflicting these wounds."

As President Sharfstein looked eye to eye with 
Pentagon brass, then American Psychological 
Association President Ronald Levant was along for 
the trip to Guantanamo. While the psychiatrists' 
President told the brass "that psychiatrists will 
not participate in the interrogation of persons 
held in custody," here is what the psychologists' 
President had to say upon return:

I accepted this offer to visit Guantanamo because 
I saw the invitation as an important opportunity 
to continue to provide our expertise and guidance 
for how psychologists can play an appropriate and 
ethical role in national security investigations. 
Our goals are to ensure that psychologists add 
value and safeguards to such investigations and 
that they are done in an ethical and effective 
manner that protects the safety of all involved."

As a psychologist, it deeply saddens me to admit 
that Psychiatric Association President Sharfstein 
has it correct. What distinguishes the two 
professions is that psychiatrists have taken a 
moral position, at the cost of a potential loss 
of access to top military decision-makers and 
funding-providers, while the leadership of 
psychologists, in contrast, have put access and, 
potentially, funding, above taking a moral stand 
on the perversions of the War on Terror. In the 
process of protecting this access, the 
psychological association has regularly used 
deception and bad faith, trying to argue that 
participation in interrogations is, indeed, ethical.

The Association leadership has worked 
persistently to protect the ability of 
psychologists to participate in "national 
security" interrogations, even, at times, 
claiming an ethical obligation to do so to 
prevent harm to society, presumably from the 
"terrorists" imprisoned there for the last five 
years. [See also Olivia Moorehead-Slaughter's 
report on the PENS Task Force she chaired: "as 
experts in human behavior, psychologists 
contribute to effective interrogations."]

These efforts have paid off: On June 7, 2006 the New York Times reported:

"Pentagon officials said Tuesday that they would 
try to use only psychologists, and not 
psychiatrists, to help interrogators devise 
strategies to get information from detainees at 
places like Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The new policy follows by little more than two 
weeks an overwhelming vote by the American 
Psychiatric Association discouraging its members 
from participating in those efforts.

Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary 
of defense for health affairs, told reporters 
that the new policy favoring the use of 
psychologists over psychiatrists was a 
recognition of differing positions taken by their 
respective professional groups."

Thus did psychologist score a major victory over 
their ancient enemy, the psychiatrists.

On January 8, 2007, British attorney Brent Mickum 
wrote of his two clients, Bisher al-Rawi and 
Jamil el-Banna, in Guantánamo's lost souls on the 
website of the British newspaper the Guardian. 
These two men are known from extensive evidence 
almost certainly to be innocent:

Bisher al-Rawi is, slowly but surely, slipping into madness.

The diminution of Bisher's mental faculties has 
not taken place all at once. Gradually, over 
time, Bisher simply has worn down. He no longer 
has the power to withstand the ravages of 
psychological isolation and the constant abuse he 
suffers. To be sure, Bisher is not the only 
affected prisoner; attorneys representing other 
prisoners at Guantánamo report that clients who 
are being kept in isolation are going insane..

Bisher's world is a 6 by 8-foot cell in Camp V, 
where alleged "non-compliant" prisoners are 
incarcerated. After years and hundreds of 
interrogations, Bisher finally refused to be 
interrogated further. Despite the fact that 
Guantánamo officials have publicly proclaimed 
that prisoners are no longer required to 
participate in interrogations, Bisher is deemed 
non-compliant and tortured daily.

Solitary confinement is but a single aspect of 
the torture that Bisher endures on a daily basis. 
While in isolation, Bisher has been constantly 
subjected to severe temperature extremes and 
other sensory torments, many of which are part of 
a sleep deprivation program that never abates. 
Frequently, Bisher's cell is unbearably cold 
because the air conditioning is turned up to the 
maximum. Sometimes, his captors take his orange 
jumpsuit and sheet, leaving him only in his 
shorts. For a week at a time, Bisher constantly 
shivers and is unable to sleep because of the 
extreme cold. Once, when Bisher attempted to warm 
himself by covering himself with his prayer rug, 
one of the few "comfort items" permitted to him, 
his guards removed it for "misuse". On other 
occasions, the heat is allowed to become so 
unbearable that breathing is difficult and 
labored. For a week at a time, all Bisher can do 
is lie completely still, sweat pouring off his 
body during the day when the Cuban heat can reach 
100 degrees Fahrenheit, and the temperature inside Camp V is even higher.

Bisher is allowed no contact with fellow 
prisoners. Bright lights are kept on 24 hours a 
day. Bisher is given 15 sheets of toilet paper 
per day, but because he used his sheets to cover 
his eyes to help him to sleep, his toilet paper - 
considered another comfort itemhas been removed for "misuse".

Accordingly, he is no longer receives his daily 
ration of 15 sheets of toilet paper. Imagine 
being in the position of having to make a choice 
between using your tiny allotment of toilet paper 
for the purpose for which it was intended or 
using it to sleep, and then having it removed altogether.
Dinner never arrives before 9.30pm and sometimes 
comes as late as 12.00am. It is almost always 
cold. Changes of clothing take place at midnight 
when prisoners are given a single, thin cotton 
sheet for sleeping. Thereafter, a noisy library 
cart is dragged through the corridors; Bisher has 
been denied library privileges for some time, but 
the library cart and the noise are constant 
reminders that he is afforded no intellectual 
stimulation. Prisoners are unable to sleep until 
close to 1.00am. They are awakened at 5.00am, 
when each is required to return his sheet. All of 
Bisher's legal documents and family photographs 
were seized in June and have never been returned."

About the other prisoner he represents, Jamil el-Banna, this attorney reports:

" I have see[n] letters from Jamil's youngest 
children on my visits to Guantánamo, one-page 
letters that are heavily redacted by military 
censors. What is the offending language that the 
military has seen fit to redact? Language like 
"Daddy, I love you" and "Daddy, I miss you." How 
do I know? Because on my instructions, Jamil's 
wife has saved copies of the letters her children sent."

Guantanamo and other US detention facilities are 
illegal and immoral institutions. They appear to 
be designed to break people down, to destroy 
them, whether they are innocent or guilty, 
whether they have any intelligence value or not. 
It is possible that they are intentional 
experimental facilities designed to develop and 
test new behavior manipulation techniques. In any 
case, they clearly constitute a hell on earth, 
the "gulag of out time" as Amnesty International 
described Guantanamo. It is well past time that 
the United States start respecting those lofty 
human rights sentiments spouted by our leaders 
and enshrined in our laws and binding international treaties.

It is also long past time that psychology as a 
profession, along with the other health 
professions, starts contributing to the building 
of respect for humanity rather than aiding the 
creation of hell. As Harry Stack Sullivan clearly 
stated long ago: " We are all much more simply 
human than otherwise." Surely we, as 
psychologists and psychoanalysts, should be 
leaders in recognizing the humanity of all, even 
those identified as alleged "terrorists." Surely, 
carrying out our duties as psychologists, as 
citizens, and as human beings is of far greater 
importance than is maintaining our professional 
access to the levers of power. If not, then 
humanity has no need of our profession.

Stephen Soldz is psychoanalyst, psychologist, 
public health researcher, and faculty member at 
the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis. He 
maintains the 
<http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/>Psychoanalysts 
for Peace and Justice web site and the 
<http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/>Psyche, Science, and Society blog.

This essay is the text of a talk delivered, March 
17, 2007 at the Psychoanalytic Institute of 
Northern California (PINC) conference: UNFREE 
ASSOCIATION: The Politics and Psychology of Torture in a Time of Terror


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