Sunday, May 10, 2015

American Psychological Association Bolstered C.I.A. Torture Program, Report Says

From the New York Times:

The American Psychological Association secretly collaborated with the administration of President George W. Bush to bolster a legal and ethical justification for the torture of prisoners swept up in the post-Sept. 11 war on terror, according to a new report by a group of dissident health professionals and human rights activists.

The report is the first to examine the association’s role in the interrogation program. It contends, using newly disclosed emails, that the group’s actions to keep psychologists involved in the interrogation program coincided closely with efforts by senior Bush administration officials to salvage the program after the public disclosure in 2004 of graphic photos of prisoner abuse by American military personnel at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.


More here.

F you, APA. You've made an already chronically ethics-challenged field a whole hell of a lot sleazier. Are you even going to try to dig psychology out of the hole in which you've put it? Or are you above all that? I have nothing but contempt for you.

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