Friday, August 12, 2005

Democracy Now! | Psychological Warfare? A Debate on the Role of Mental Health Professionals in Military Interrogations at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and B

Psychological Warfare? A Debate on the Role of Mental Health Professionals in Military Interrogations at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and Beyond:

"Also, in responding to Dr. Wilks’ statement, 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 A.P.A. will address those very directly and very clearly.

DR. ROBERT JAY LIFTON: May I respond to that?

AMY GOODMAN: Yes. Dr. Robert Jay Lifton.

DR. ROBERT JAY LIFTON: I have to say that many of the facts are already in. Unfortunately, American physicians and psychologists have been active in interrogation processes at the edge of torture, and I think we have these facts from very reputable international human rights organizations, including the Red Cross. So, I don't think we have to wait any longer for those facts. The difficulty in the position that Dr. Behnke is putting forward -- I mean, I respect his search for an ethical position, but the difficulty in what he is saying is that it encourages what I call a kind of doubling in psychologists. In Nazi doctors, I observed a process I came to call doubling which meant the formation of what is functionally a second self so that the same person could engage in killing in Auschwitz six days a week and then go home to Germany and be an ordinary father or husband."

My comments:

This is not really about psychological warfare, it is about employing doctors and psychologists as part of state terrorism.
It makes me want to throw up, as a psychologist and as a human being.
This is Nazism all over again.

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