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<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/soldz04132007.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/soldz04132007.html<br><br>
</a></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b>April 13,
2007<br><br>
</font><h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5><b>Psychology and
Coercive Interrogations in Historical Perspective<br><br>
<br>
</i></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000">Aid
and Comfort for
Torturers</b></font></h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5>By
STEPHEN SOLDZ<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=6 color="#990000">O</font>
<font face="Verdana" size=2>n 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. <br><br>
When asked what would have happened if he had been a real detainee, Baker
told CBS's <i>60 Minutes</i>: "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."<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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 <i>APA Monitor</i>
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..<br><br>
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 <i>Baltimore Sun</i> article entitled: "Torture
was taught by CIA; Declassified manual details the methods used in
Honduras; Agency denials refuted" <br><br>
The manual advises an interrogator to "manipulate the subject's
environment, to create unpleasant or intolerable situations."<br>
From this <i>Baltimore Sun</i> article:<br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd>"</b>"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. <br><br>
<dd>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."
<br><br>
</dl>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. "<br><br>
</b>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</i>
describes in its subtitle: "Systematic Use of Psychological Torture
by US Forces."<br><br>
The practice of Psychological Torture in US facilities includes:
<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>Prolonged Isolation</b> for months, even years.<br><br>
<dd>Sleep Deprivation</b>, sometimes allowing as little as two hours a
night, for prolonged periods<br><br>
<dd>Sensory Distortion</b> including sensory deprivation (masks, goggles,
etc.), very loud music; and hypothermia (turning air conditioning on
high)<br><br>
<dd>Sexual and Cultural Humiliation</b> -- 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: "
'</b>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.<br><br>
</dl>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.' "]<br><br>
These purely psychological techniques are often combined with another
component:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>Self-inflicted pain</b>--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.']<br><br>
</dl>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</i>
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.' "<br><br>
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</i>'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:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>"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.' "<br><br>
</dl>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.<br><br>
Mohammed al-Qahtani was interrogated over many months at Guantanamo. BSCT
Psychologist Major John Leso was present during this
interrogation.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
In July 2005, the New Yorker</i> published an article by Jane Mayer
entitled The Experiment</i>. 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:<br><br>
Attorney Azmy told Mayer:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>"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." <br><br>
</dl>The prominent Middle East scholar Juan Cole, on his Informed
Comment</i> blog posted an email from a former military officer:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>"I'm a former US [military officer], and had the 'pleasure' of
attending SERE school.<br><br>
<dd>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.<br><br>
<dd>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 . ..<br><br>
<dd>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.<br><br>
<dd>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."<br><br>
</dl><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">PENS Task Force<br><br>
</b></font>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</i> last July, more than a year after the PENS report was released;
Benjamin got the names from a Congressional source, not the APA.<br><br>
Let's look at a few of the members, as described in their official APA
biographical statements:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>Colonel Morgan Banks</b> is currently the Command Psychologist and
Chief of the Psychological Applications Directorate of the U.S. Army
Special Operations Command</i> (USASOC). " He is the senior Army
Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) Psychologist</i>,
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."<br><br>
<dd>Robert A. Fein</b> is currently a consultant to the Directorate for
Behavioral Sciences of the Department of Defense Counterintelligence
Field Activity (CIFA)</i>, the DOD Criminal Investigative Task Force
(CITF)</i>, and the U.S. Secret Service's National Threat Assessment
Cente</i>r. He also serves as a member of the Intelligence Science
Board</i>.<br><br>
<dd>Colonel Larry C. James</b> In 2003, he was the Chief Psychologist for
the Joint Intelligence Group at GTMO</i>, Cuba, and in 2004 he was the
Director, Behavioral Science Unit, Joint Interrogation and Debriefing
Center at Abu Ghraib</i>, 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.<br><br>
<dd>Captain Bryce E. Lefever</b> as assigned to the Navy's Survival
Evasion Resistance Escape (SERE) School</i> 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</i> 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</i>.<br><br>
<dd>R. Scott Shumate</b> has worked for the federal government in highly
classified positions that have required him to travel extensively and
live overseas</i>. 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</i>.
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</i>.<br><br>
</dl>Also on the PENS taskforce was Michael Gelles.</b> 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.<br><br>
Not surprisingly, given its composition, the PENS report</i>
concluded:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>"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."<br><br>
</dl>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.<br><br>
<font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">Other Professional
Associations<br><br>
</b></font>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."<br><br>
In June, 2005, the American Psychiatric Association expressed concern
over the reports of psychiatrist involvement in abuses at
Guantanamo:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>"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."<br><br>
</dl>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:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>"A number of opportunistic commentators masquerading as scholars
have continued to report on alleged abuses by mental health
professionals."<br><br>
</dl>In May, 2006 the American Psychiatric Association went on to ban all
direct participation in interrogations by psychiatrists: <br><br>
<dl>
<dd>"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."<br><br>
</dl>American Psychiatric Association President Steven S. Sharfstein
devoted a significant portion of his 2006 Presidential Address to this
issue:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>"We must exercise vigilance over our other core values. When I
read in the New England Journal of Medicine</i> 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.<br><br>
<dd>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.<br><br>
</dl>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."<br><br>
As President Sharfstein looked eye to eye with Pentagon brass, then
American Psychological</i> 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:<br><br>
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." <br><br>
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.<br><br>
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."]<br><br>
These efforts have paid off: On June 7, 2006 the New York Times</i>
reported:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>"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.<br><br>
<dd>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.<br><br>
<dd>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."<br><br>
</dl>Thus did psychologist score a major victory over their ancient
enemy, the psychiatrists.<br><br>
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</i> on the website of the British newspaper the Guardian</i>. These
two men are known from extensive evidence almost certainly to be
innocent:<br><br>
Bisher al-Rawi is, slowly but surely, slipping into madness.<br><br>
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..<br><br>
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.
<br><br>
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. <br><br>
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".<br><br>
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. <br>
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."<br><br>
About the other prisoner he represents, Jamil el-Banna, this attorney
reports:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>" 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."<br><br>
</dl>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. <br><br>
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.<br><br>
Stephen Soldz</b> is psychoanalyst, psychologist, public health
researcher, and faculty member at the Boston Graduate School of
Psychoanalysis. He maintains the
<a href="http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/">Psychoanalysts for Peace
and Justice</a> web site and the
<a href="http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/">Psyche, Science, and
Society</a> blog.<br><br>
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<br><br>
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