The American Psychological Association (APA) at its meeting in San Diego, CA this weekend for its annual convention was presented with a letter to APA President Goodheart detailing APA’s complicity and failure to act in ethics scandals involving psychologists who aided the U.S. government’s torture program. Hundreds of innocent Americans, alleging that the government torture program includes covert torture of innocent persons in the U.S., have requested advocacy from ethical psychologist groups and other human rights groups yet to respond.

To investigate "war on terror" crimes including torture, Senator Leahy has called for a U.S. Truth Commission but asks if Americans are ready for truth. (See videos below)

Part of the truth is that the U.S. medical system and U.S. military in partnership are engaging in non-consensual human experimentation associated with torture according to a recent Physicians for Human Rights report. The Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC) has demanded accountability related to these crimes and in June, called on Americans to do the same by signing its letter to the attorney general. (See: Dupre, D. Today's US medicos and military Nazi human experimentation, Examiner, June 7, 2010)

Human experimentation is no longer limited to those most vulnerable, such as children, detainees and institutionalized mentally ill. "Targeted individuals'" reports consistently reveal their abuse meet...

The Coalition for an Ethical Psychology that wrote the letter to APA "charges that the APA has been directly complicit in supporting and empowering psychologists to develop, research, supervise and/or implement the Bush-era interrogation program with impunity.

"This complicity includes APA involvement in the cases of three psychologists – James Mitchell, John Leso, and Larry James – against whom ethics complaints have recently been filed with state licensing boards," according to the coalition statement released Friday. (See the Coalition's text of complaint available here in pdf)

APA complicity goes back to 2002 when the association amended its ethics code, protecting psychologists involved in government sponsored torture according to the Coalition. This time period coincides with dramatic escalation of U.S. "Targeted Individual" reports of counterintelligence  signature style persecution, harassment, non-forced break-ins, black-listing, death threats plus attempted and some completed targeted killings called WDS, Whistleblower Death Syndrome. If only half of these reports are valid, ethical psychologists today are exposing only the tip of the public supported, state-sponsored torture experiment iceberg.

In an article, "CIA Blackwater hit squads, violence against targeted individuals," the writer reported:

Rudimentary data about self-identified targeted individuals (SITIs) plus anecdotal reports indicate that since 2001, an influx of innocent, injured citizens have been lodging complaints with law enforcement; national and international human rights organizations; elected officials; and media about their experiencing covert, cruel and inhumane treatment.

"This influx was one stated reason that in 2006, then Georgia Congressperson Cynthia McKinney called to reopen the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Cointelpro investigation with House Resolution 1026.

'A look back at the Nixon era Tom Charles Houston plan, referred to as ‘fascist’ by Congressional investigators, shows us it is being implemented in full since 9/11. Congress has a responsibility to open oversight hearings into the new abuses as well as their historical context, and to acknowledge and give relief to its victims then and now,' stated McKinney in the 2006 Washington press release."

 

The Coalition for an Ethical Psychology is calling for an independent, impartial, outside investigation to study the APA’s collusion in the U.S. torture program. Furthermore, the Coalition calls on the APA to write letters in support of state ethics complaints against APA members Larry James and John Leso, and to initiate an APA ethics investigation of Larry James.

The Coalition insists that the Association fully implement the member-passed referendum withdrawing psychologists from sites in violation of or outside of international law, specifically Guantánamo and Bagram Air Base.

The Coalition letter to Goodheart details evidence of APA torture complicity:

* Former APA President Joseph Matarazzo was on the board of Mitchell, Jessen & Associates, the firm that reportedly designed and implemented the CIA’s torture program.
* APA has failed to adjudicate an internal ethics complaint against member Larry James, president of the Military Psychology Division, and has failed to support state ethics complaints against James and Leso, both of whom are accused of participation in abuses at Guantánamo.
* The APA ethics complaint against Leso, filed in August 2006, is perhaps the longest-unadjudicated complaint in APA history.
* APA hosted confidential conferences together with the CIA and RAND Corporation in 2003 and 2004 at which James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, CIA consultants and torture psychologists, were among the attendees. The 2003 conference discussed such “enhanced interrogation” techniques as use of drugs and sensory overload.
* A former top APA official, Russ Newman, while married to a Guantánamo Behavioral Science Consultant, was allowed to exert major influence on an APA ethics task force implicitly determining whether his wife’s activities were ethical.
* That same task force was dominated by military-intelligence psychologists, a majority of whom had served in chains-of-command accused of participating in detainee abuse.
* APA has actively undermined the 59% of voting members who voted to withdraw psychologists from Guantánamo, Bagram, and other detention sites operating outside of or in violation of international law.

Since 2006, the Coalition and allies have urged APA policy changes through: open letters (often with other psychological and human rights organizations); a campaign of withholding APA dues and mass resignations; an election campaign for APA President; and a member-passed referendum withdrawing psychologists from sites in violation of or outside of international law.

The Coalition works to restore psychology to its ethical foundation that supports social justice and human rights. It has led efforts to remove psychologists from torture and abusive interrogations. While the Coalition's latest action of charges against APA is a commendable step, it could learn important secrets of the US torture program from Targeted Individuals.

Until psychologists recognize that the U.S. torture program is not limited to overseas detainees and some facilities in the U.S., but also includes covert domestic in-home torture of targeted persons resembling CIA-military torturous non-consensual human experimentation, victims of this criminal activity have nowhere to turn for help according to their self-support group emails. The bulk of TI email discussions relate to their desperation to survive and gain ethical psychologists and human rights groups to help advocate for them.

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) continues to advocate for investigations with a focus on overseas detainees. Its report, Experiments in Torture: Evidence of Human Subject Research and Experimentation in the 'Enhanced' Interrogation Program analyzes evidence of human subjects research by health professionals at behest of the CIA as part of its torture program.The CIA's torture program, however, is far more widespread, involving far more American professionals and innocent victims than ethical psychologists and others in the caring field have debated, investigated or reported according to some therapists such as Carole Smith who boldly reports on secret high-tech weaponry applied to many targets. (See: Carole Smith, On the Need for New Criteria of Diagnosis of Psychosis in the Light of Mind Invasive Technology, Global Research, October 18, 2007. Also see: Cheryl Welsh, Mind Justice website: www.mindjustice.org/ )

PHR has called on both Pres. Obama to direct AG Eric Holder to launch a criminal investigation of alleged illegal human experimentation, plus Congress to convene a joint select committee to investigate the matter.

The PHR Experiments in Torture report has been covered by the Examiner, New York Times, the Washington Post, The Guardian UK, the Los Angeles Times, Truthout.org, Glenn Greenwald, Democracy Now!, Mother Jones, AlterNet, Counterpunch, Boing Boing, firedoglake, and Salon.com plus many others. New York Times issued a June 7 editorial, Doctors Who Aid Torture supporting PHR's call for investigations.

Authors of Doctors Who Aid Torture, Leonard Rubenstein and Stephen Xenakis "point to a significant and growing body of evidence to back up the need for such investigations -- they specifically mention the "torture memos," the al-Qahtani interrogation log, Guantanamo Bay's
Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedure documents, and the CIA Inspector General's Report.

"Sadly, despite the ever-mounting evidence, as of February 2010, Rubenstein and Xenakis report that 'no agency — not the Pentagon, the C.I.A., state licensing boards or professional medical societies — has initiated any action to investigate, much less discipline, these individuals.'" (See: Psychologists for an Ethical APA, Online: http://www.ethicalapa.com/)

The Independent reports that a UK investigation evealed that doctors are gagged and become targeted individuals if they try exposing wrongdoings, a possibility of the same occurring in the U.S. according to credible Targeted Individuals' anecdotal reports. According to The Independent:

"Campaign groups claim that NHS [National Health Service] managers sometimes resort to intimidatory tactics to deter medics from coming forward, while others that break cover can face years of expense and uncertainty before their cases reach court. The result, they say, is that doctors accept the gagging clauses in order to protect their careers and avoid legal wrangling.

"Mike Parker, of the Royal College of Surgeons, said: 'The trusts find something upon which they can influence this individual and hold them virtually to ransom, and say: 'You speak up and this will happen.' (Millions spent on doctor 'gagging orders' by NHS, investigation finds, The Independent, August 2, 2010)

Call for U.S. Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Since 1996, the North American Freedom Foundation (NAFF) based in Soddy Daisy, Tennessee has been educating the public about debilitating long-term effects of US government human experiments and related crimes and human rights violations.

Kathleen Sullivan, MSW with NAFF has commented, "In 2004, we posted information about our concerns that the same methods previously been used on US and Canadian citizens were now being used to brutally break the minds and wills of Iraq War detainees.

"In June, NAFF began developing a US Truth and Reconciliation Commission to give US and Canadian survivors the chance to tell what they've also suffered," stated Sullivan.

Truth Commissions can grant perpetrator amnesty in return for testimonies.

Thouands of military personnel have been targeted for torturous mind control experimentation long before the Bush and Obama regimes. The CIA prevented 7000 Vietnam Vet secret mind control human experimentees from medical treatment.  "A federal judge in San Francisco was given the green light to an action by Vietnam vets saying the CIA prevented roughly 7,000 human subjects from getting medical care after they were subjected to experiments on mind control, implantation of electronics and the effects of exotic drugs," the same claims made by many of today's Targeted Individuals that are being routinely dismissed. (Dupre, CIA prevented 7000 Vietnam Vets secret mind control human experimentees from medical treatment, Examiner,

Due to such atrocities, in 2009, Veterans For Peace called for a U.S. Truth Commission, at one point gaining cooperation from Desmon... Since that remarkable effort by VFP and its member Roland VanDeusenn, Senate Judiciary Committee Chair, Senator Patrick Leahy has worked ... on domestic terrorism and called for more public support for a Truth Commission.