Psychology in Modern Torture

In an open letter to the President of the American Psychological Association, a group of private sector psychologists and professors have demanded an explanation of the APA's role in developing the methods of torture currently in use for "terrorists." In their words:

Every report of horrific abuses occuring at Guantanamo and elsewhere has not only cast doubt upon this basic premise of APA policy, these reports have repeatedly highlighted psychologists' abuse of psychological knowledge for purposes of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Yet the APA has never made any public attempt to investigate such reports. Even if certain psychologists attempted to "keep interrogations safe and ethical," the OIG [Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General] report demonstrates once and for all that BSCT [Behavioral Science Consultation Teams] and SERE [Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape] psychologists, among others, were responsible for the development, migration, and perpetration of abuses.

The ideas of using medical, biological, and other scientific knowledge is certainly not a new idea, but do we really want to have our psychologists referred to in the same ways as the Nazi Doctors or the "scientists" at Japan's "Unit 731?" From how it appears, after it's all over, we'll treat the officials at our facilities as we did those from Japan: exonerate them of their crimes and give them high level positions in thanks for their innovative work in destroying people (specifically, on that subject, after General MacArthur commuted the death and prison sentences of the officials, Lieutenant General Shiro Ishii became the supervisor of biological research at the University of Maryland).

Steven Soldz, who's signature leads on the letter, also wrote this for the Atlantic Free Press.