This started out as a story about a White House task force appointment, the source being this article by Glenn Greenwald from last Friday. Greenwald begins (my emphasis throughout):
One of the most intense scandals the field of psychology has faced over the last decade is the involvement of several of its members in enabling Bush's worldwide torture regime. Numerous health professionals worked for the U.S. government to help understand how best to mentally degrade and break down detainees. At the center of that controversy was -- and is -- Dr. Larry James. James, a retired Army colonel, was the Chief Psychologist at Guantanamo in 2003, at the height of the abuses at that camp, and then served in the same position at Abu Ghraib during 2004.But that was so last weekend. Note that the ultimate source of this news is Dr. James himself, via an email he sent to colleagues that was obtained by the Harvard Law School Human Rights Program.
Today, Dr. James circulated an excited email announcing, "with great pride," that he has now been selected to serve on the "White House Task Force entitled Enhancing the Psychological Well-Being of The Military Family." In his new position, he will be meeting at the White House with Michelle Obama and other White House officials on Tuesday [March 29].
For his work at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, Dr. James was the subject of two formal ethics complaints in the two states where he is licensed to practice: Louisiana and Ohio. ... The complaints detailed how James "was the senior psychologist of the Guantánamo BSCT, a small but influential group of mental health professionalsu whose job it was to advise on and participate in the interrogations, and to help create an environment designed to break down prisoners."
When contacted for confirmation, however, the White House, through the First Lady's communication's director Kristina Schake, said one of two things. She either said this (via Greenwald's update to his original post):
Several members of the White House staff are convening a meeting with multiple mental health professionals on Tuesday to discuss issues pertaining to the wellness of military families. SAMHSA and the American Psychological Association have both been asked to attend. We understand that Dr. James is involved with these groups and may have been indirectly invited to attend this meeting.Or perhaps she said this (via a google-cached version of an apparently deleted Truthout post):
Kristina Schake, Michelle Obama's communication's director, told Truthout that there is no official task force to address the psychological well being of military families.No one else is talking, not Dr. James, not the White House, as near as I could tell.
So which is it? Did Dr. Larry "Gitmo psychologist" James, the Dean of the School of Professional Psychology at Wright State University, announce his appointment to a non-existent White House task force?
Did he lie about his appointment to an existing one?
Or did the White House disappear (sorry, render out of existence) the task force after Greenwald wrote about it?
Perhaps the key is in that weasel-sounding word "official" in the cached quote above. It is a puzzlement, to be sure. I find no reference to a Tuesday meeting having occurred, much less to Dr. James' involvement in it.
What is certain is that there's a scandal in the psychology profession that's under most people's radars. That scandal involves the American Psychological Association (APA) and its agonizing slowness to condemn, and reluctance to discipline, its members for participating in Bush-era torture and torture-design. This is in addition to the scandal involving the Obama administration's failure to move against any torture-policy architect.
The fight within the psychology profession is ongoing, and this week's skirmish is just a part of it. There's more after the break. It's ugly.
GP
For just a taste of the APA's history on Bush-era torture:
When in 2005 news reports exposed the fact that psychologists were working with the US military and the CIA to develop brutal interrogation methods, American Psychological Association (APA) leaders assembled a task force to examine the issue. After just two days of deliberations, the ten-member task force concluded that psychologists were playing a “valuable and ethical role” in assisting the military.And again, in 2007 (same source):
At the annual APA convention in August 2007, members presented the APA Council of Representatives with a moratorium amendment to the APA resolution[.] ... The Council voted overwhelmingly to reject this measure that would have banned its members from participating in abusive interrogation of detainees.As late as 2010:
Dr. Jim L. H. Cox filed a formal ethics complaint against [Dr. James] Mitchell in the state of Texas, where Mitchell remains a licensed psychologist. The American Psychological Association sent a letter to the Texas State Board of Psychologists calling the allegations in the complaint "represent 'patently unethical' actions inconsistent with the organization's ethics guidelines.", If "a member of the APA were found to have committed the acts alleged against Mitchell, 'he or she would be expelled from the APA membership,'" The letter is the first of its kind issued in the board's history. ... The Board of Examiners of Psychologists dismissed the complaint against Mitchell February 10, 2011, saying there wasn't enough evidence to prove Mitchell violated its rules. This was described as one of several recent cases where such complaints about post-9/11 ethical violations were dismissed for lack of proof.Dr. Mitchell was identified by the New York Times as "the architect of the U.S. torture program after 9/11". People like Dr. Mitchell, Dr. James, and others used their medical knowledge to deepen the suffering of the victims at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib. That's the very definition of violating the Hippocratic Oath. Imagine the AMA refusing to de-certify someone like Dr. Josef Mengele, the Auschwitz torturer. It's that serious.
Which brings us back to Obama and Dr. Larry James. Glenn's post is rich in detail about Dr. James and he bottom-lines the issue well. If that task force exists in any form, and if Dr. James was invited, the following is certainly true:
This isn't exactly a powerful Task Force, but what this appointment does is have the White House -- yet again -- signal that it does not really take very seriously the Bush torture regime. On appearance grounds alone, the Obama administration should not be embracing and legitimizing the Bush-era Chief Psychologist of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Is there really nobody in the White House who was able to come to that realization on their own, or is this part of some twisted "reaching out" effort to show that they view bygones as bygones when it comes to the war crimes our leaders committed and whom the Obama administration continues to protect?If more comes out about this, I'll report back. As I said, this is truly ugly.
