{"id":27776,"date":"2013-04-15T12:00:56","date_gmt":"2013-04-15T11:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=27776"},"modified":"2015-05-06T12:53:14","modified_gmt":"2015-05-06T11:53:14","slug":"guantanamo-and-the-american-psychological-association-where-accountability-goes-to-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2013\/04\/guantanamo-and-the-american-psychological-association-where-accountability-goes-to-die\/","title":{"rendered":"Guant\u00e1namo and the American Psychological Association: Where Accountability Goes to Die"},"content":{"rendered":"

After more than a decade of detention at the Guant\u00e1namo Bay Naval Base, dozens of \u201cwar on terror\u201d prisoners \u2013 the vast majority of them long recognized as innocent of any terrorist involvement \u2013 have taken to starving themselves to death. Their desperate hunger strike<\/a> is driven by the deadening cumulative toll of years of indefinite detention, with little or no hope of ever leaving the U.S. military prison alive.<\/p>\n

As the plight of the men still imprisoned at Guant\u00e1namo is beginning to receive some small measure of public attention and concern, there remains a disturbing reality. Many of these individuals have suffered not only from indefinite detention, they have also been the victims of horrific physical and psychological abuse often rising to the level of torture, at the hands of individuals who have never been held accountable.<\/p>\n

As psychologists distressed by the involvement of our own profession in detainee abuse,<\/a> we are especially troubled by the failure of the American Psychological Association (APA) to sanction one of its members, Dr. John Leso, a psychologist and Army officer who served at Guant\u00e1namo from June 2002 to January 2003. Six long years ago one of us (Trudy Bond) filed a complaint against Dr. Leso with the APA\u2019s Ethics Committee. Providing detailed and comprehensive documentation, the complaint identified Dr. Leso\u2019s role in developing abusive and torturous detention and interrogation procedures at the facility, as well as his direct participation in the mistreatment of prisoner Mohammed al-Qahtani. Remarkably the Ethics Committee has still not adjudicated this case.<\/p>\n

The evidence of Dr. Leso\u2019s ethical violations is quite considerable and thus difficult to summarize. While much information is still classified, ample evidence of wrongdoing by Dr. Leso is publicly available in a wide range of official government documents. Of particular note is a 2008 Report from the Senate Armed Services Committee<\/a> (SASC), based on the Committee\u2019s extensive inquiry into the treatment of detainees held at Guant\u00e1namo and elsewhere. The Report discussed the activities of a military psychologist \u2013 identified in supporting documentation<\/a> as Dr. Leso \u2013 and psychiatrist Paul Burney as the lead members of the first Behavioral Science Consultation Team (BSCT) at Guant\u00e1namo, tasked with using their professional expertise to advise interrogators.<\/p>\n

According to the SASC Report, after three months of monitoring interrogations at Guant\u00e1namo, Drs. Leso and Burney traveled to Fort Bragg in North Carolina for training in interrogation techniques modelled on the Army\u2019s program of Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE). SERE is an intensive training program for U.S. service members at high risk of capture. One component teaches how to resist the type of interrogation employed \u201cby enemies that refuse to follow the Geneva Conventions.\u201d Thus SERE trainees are exposed to torture techniques as a form of inoculation training. As the SASC Report documents in detail, during the period after the 9\/11 attacks, CIA and military psychologists reverse-engineered these SERE training techniques to be used as \u201cenhanced interrogation techniques\u201d against U.S. \u201cwar on terror\u201d prisoners. With this maneuver the U.S. military joined those powers that \u201crefuse to follow the Geneva Conventions\u201d in interrogations.<\/p>\n

After their return from Fort Bragg in October 2002, Drs. Leso and Burney issued a memo in which they proposed SERE-based strategies and techniques for use with \u201chigh value\u201d Guant\u00e1namo detainees. These techniques were calculated to create maximal psychological disorganization, severe physical discomfort, and intense fear and anxiety. Among the techniques they recommended were prolonged isolation for up to 30 days without the right of visitation by treating medical professionals or the International Committee of the Red Cross (with additional month-long periods if authorized); removal of all \u201ccomfort items,\u201d including sheets, blankets, mattresses, wash cloths, and religious items; daily 20-hour interrogations (with resultant sleep deprivation); placing hoods on detainees during questioning or movement; food restriction for 24 hours once a week; scenarios designed to convince the detainee that he might experience a painful or fatal outcome; removal of clothing; exposure to cold; and stress positions.<\/p>\n

The recommendations of Drs. Leso and Burney soon were applied to Mohammed al-Qahtani, the unwilling recipient of Guant\u00e1namo\u2019s first \u201cSpecial Interrogation Plan.\u201d The leaked secret interrogation log of \u201cDetainee 063\u201d<\/a> (Mohammed al-Qahtani) confirms that Dr. Leso was present during interrogation sessions and that he provided guidance in his BSCT role. A 2005 Army Report<\/a> examining FBI allegations of detainee mistreatment concluded that Mr. al-Qahtani was the victim of degrading and abusive treatment. Almost daily over a period of nearly two months, Mr. al-Qahtani was subjected to interrogations of 18-20 hours\u2019 duration. For over five months, he was held in solitary confinement, completely segregated from other detainees.<\/p>\n

Army investigators also found that all of the following occurred at various times during the course of Mr. al-Qahtani\u2019s interrogations: he was forced to wear a woman\u2019s bra and had a thong placed on his head; he was told that his mother and sister were whores, that he was a homosexual, and that other detainees had found out about his homosexual tendencies; he was tied to a leash, led around the interrogation room, and forced to perform dog tricks; he was forced to dance with a male interrogator, subjected to strip searches, and forced to stand naked with women present; he was prevented from carrying out his Muslim obligation of praying regularly; he was held in place while a female interrogator straddled him; a military working dog was brought into the interrogation room to growl, bark, and show its teeth; he was subjected to loud music and cold temperatures for extended periods; and water was repeatedly poured over his head as an act of humiliation.<\/p>\n

There is perhaps no more succinct or more authoritative judgment of the mistreatment Mr. al-Qahtani suffered at Guant\u00e1namo \u2013 with the participation of Dr. Leso \u2013 than the assessment offered by Susan Crawford, the former judge who was appointed by the Bush Administration as the convening authority of military commissions in February 2007. Judge Crawford declined to refer Mr. al-Qahtani for prosecution, and in a later Washington Post interview<\/a> she stated, \u201cWe tortured [Mohammed al-] Qahtani. \u2026His treatment met the legal definition of torture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Longstanding American Psychological Association policy prohibits psychologists from involvement in torture or cruel, degrading, or inhuman treatment or punishment. The first principle of the APA Ethics Code \u2013 \u201cBeneficence and Non-Maleficence\u201d \u2013 states clearly: \u201cPsychologists strive to benefit those with whom they work and take care to do no harm,\u201d an injunction clearly violated by Dr. Leso\u2019s actions. Dr. Leso also violated multiple specific Ethical Standards<\/a> delineated in the Ethics Code. For example, he failed to take reasonable steps to avoid causing harm to detainees at Guantanamo, or to act in ways that minimized others\u2019 misuse of his knowledge and training as a psychologist. At the same time, he acted beyond the boundaries of his competence; he used his position of authority to adopt an exploitative relationship toward detainees; and he engaged in harassing and demeaning behavior toward detainees through the interrogation plans he designed and through the specific guidance he provided to interrogators.<\/p>\n

So why then, despite a compelling public record of extensive wrongdoing by Dr. Leso, has the APA Ethics Committee refused to adjudicate this case for six years? The Ethics Committee is comprised of eight members who serve staggered three-year terms. The composition of the entire Committee has already fully turned over twice<\/i> without a decision having been reached in this case. In fact 26 different psychologists and public representatives have served terms on the Ethics Committee during this extended period of inaction. Throughout, the only constant has been the leadership of Stephen Behnke, the Director of the APA Ethics Office. As far back as 2005, Dr. Behnke dismissed growing concerns of psychologist complicity in detainee abuse and torture while making this false promise<\/a>:<\/p>\n

If psychologists have engaged in any activity, and at this point the media reports are long on hearsay and innuendo, short on facts, the American Psychological Association wants the facts. And when we have the facts, we will act on them. And if individuals who are members of our association have acted inappropriately, the APA will address those very directly and very clearly.<\/p>\n

If there was ever any validity to Dr. Behnke\u2019s assertion that reports of psychologist complicity were \u201clong on hearsay and innuendo, short on facts,\u201d that argument was discredited long ago with the release of thousands of pages of official documents providing the necessary details of psychologist involvement in torture. In the case of Dr. Leso, Dr. Behnke now has the facts, provided by reputable sources, including the United States Senate.<\/p>\n

But Dr. Behnke\u2019s claim is merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to APA assurances that lack substance. For years and in many contexts APA leaders have argued \u2013 with little evidence \u2013 that psychologists have played a crucial role in places like Guant\u00e1namo by helping to keep detention and interrogation operations \u201csafe, legal, ethical, and effective.\u201d<\/a> Moreover, they have boasted that psychologists are uniquely trained to recognize and guard against the \u201cbehavioral drift\u201d<\/a> of overzealous interrogators, who might otherwise cross ethical boundaries and apply coercive techniques. It would be a direct contradiction to this carefully crafted APA narrative to find that APA member Dr. Leso was directly involved in designing and overseeing the abuse of Guant\u00e1namo prisoners.<\/p>\n

When wrongdoing becomes undeniable in situations like these, a familiar defensive response from \u201cwar on terror\u201d proponents has been to describe an often-nameless perpetrator as one of \u201ca few bad apples.\u201d But that defense also falls flat here, as Major Leso was then (and thereafter remained) a high-level commissioned officer in the U.S. Army, specifically assigned to use his psychological training to develop Guant\u00e1namo\u2019s coercive and abusive camp-wide policies. It is also troubling that APA member Col. Larry James (former President of APA\u2019s Division 19, the Society for Military Psychology) recommended that Dr. Leso attend the Ft. Bragg training, and that this training was organized by APA member Col. Morgan Banks.<\/p>\n

With so much public evidence of significant professional wrongdoing by Dr. Leso, one might imagine that over a six-year period the Ethics Office could have adjudicated this case with a careful review of the facts. Instead there is the appearance that the case is being delayed by matters of political expediency or concerns about the APA\u2019s relationship with the national security establishment. Indeed to date the only indication that the Ethics Committee has taken the accumulated evidence seriously in any way is that they have not declared Dr. Leso guiltless.<\/p>\n

The failure to adjudicate this case has long been indefensible. The resort to stonewalling and obfuscation by the APA in order to avoid accountability has been even more egregious. Over the past six years the APA\u2019s Ethics Office and leadership have, at various times, claimed that the complaint against Dr. Leso was never received; that documentation already submitted was still needed; that no decision could be reached while a similar complaint was under review in a different jurisdiction; and that the evidence provided \u2013 including authoritative government documents \u2013 did not constitute adequate primary source material. Most recently, in November 2012, the Deputy Director and Director of Adjudication in the APA Ethics Office wrote that \u201cit is to the advantage of all parties involved to wait until APA obtains the best evidence available to make its determination.\u201d One can only wonder what would constitute that \u201cbest evidence,\u201d and what the APA is doing to obtain it.<\/p>\n

Dozens of the detainees who were present when Dr. Leso helped to design and implement abusive and torturous practices at Guant\u00e1namo \u2013 now over a decade ago \u2013 still remain imprisoned there. Many of them are innocent victims of horrific mistreatment and indefinite detention. Some have been released and returned to their homelands to live with their nightmares, and today some are among the increasing number of hunger strikers. Amidst this national disgrace, the ongoing unwillingness of the American Psychological Association to act responsibly further implicates our profession in this travesty of justice.<\/p>\n

_____________________________<\/p>\n

Roy Eidelson<\/a> <\/i><\/strong>is a<\/i><\/strong> member of the TRANSCEND network. He is a clinical psychologist and the president of\u00a0Eidelson Consulting<\/a>, where he studies, writes about, and consults on the role of psychological issues in political, organizational, and group conflict settings. He is a past president of\u00a0Psychologists for Social Responsibility<\/a><\/strong>, associate director of the Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at Bryn Mawr College, and a member of the\u00a0Coalition for an Ethical Psychology<\/a><\/strong>. Roy can be reached at reidelson@eidelsonconsulting.com<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n

Trudy Bond<\/a> <\/i><\/b>is a counseling psychologist in independent practice in Toledo, Ohio. She is a member of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology and on the steering committee of Psychologists for Social Responsibility.<\/i><\/p>\n

Stephen Soldz<\/a> <\/i><\/b>is a psychoanalyst, psychologist, public health researcher, and faculty member at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis<\/a>. He has written extensively on the involvement of psychologists in the US torture program. Soldz is a founder of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology, one of the organizations working to change American Psychological Association policy on participation in abusive interrogations and is a former president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility. He served as a psychological consultant on several Guant\u00e1namo trials.<\/i><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 counterpunch.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many of these individuals have suffered not only from indefinite detention, they have also been the victims of horrific physical and psychological abuse often rising to the level of torture, at the hands of individuals who have never been held accountable. As psychologists distressed by the involvement of our own profession in detainee abuse, we are especially troubled by the failure of the American Psychological Association (APA) to sanction one of its members, Dr. John Leso, a psychologist and Army officer who served at Guant\u00e1namo from June 2002 to January 2003. Six long years ago one of us (Trudy Bond) filed a complaint against Dr. Leso with the APA\u2019s Ethics Committee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transcend-members"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27776\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}