Talk Nation Radio for May 28, 2008
Eric Fair, former contract interrogator in USM prisons in Iraq:
PT 2 Questions and 5-3-08 event Torture and the American Psyche: Blurring the Boundaries Between Healers and Interrogators
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TRT: 29:01
Produced by Dori Smith, WHUS, Pacifica Affiliate at UCONN, the University of Connecticut in Storrs, CT
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First, a brief update from Stephen Soldz, a psychoanalyst, social activist, and Professor at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis. He goes over where things stand within an ongoing challenge to the APA, American Psychological Association, on the role of psychologists in US Military and Intelligence agency run interrogations. Soldz and other psychologists will bring yet another challenge to the APA’s role during the upcoming 116th convention of the APA at the Boston Convention Center beginning August 14th.
Hundreds of members have pulled out of the organization over information provided by the anti-torture psychologists, activists who have been extraordinarily successful at getting their message across to fellow psychologists despite any political differences.
Then former US Military contract interrogator turned Princeton divinity student Eric Fair discusses his role in abusive interrogations in US run prisons in Iraq, (Fallujah, Abu Ghaib). Fair made these remarks while serving on a panel May 3rd at an event held at First Parish Unitarian Church in Brookline Massachusetts, called ‘Torture and the American Psyche: Blurring the Boundaries Between Healers and Interrogators.’
A lively question and answer session.
Finally, Stephen Behnke, Ethics Director at the APA is given the opportunity to respond to the May 3rd event in Brookline and the talks by Eric Fair, Stephen Soldz and Leonard Rubenstein. He makes a short statement.
In part 3, we will hear Leonard Rubenstein, J.D. President of Physicians for Human Rights, a Nobel Prize winning organization, as he discusses the history of torture, torture as a human rights abuse, torture and the law, and the US and torture, all in the context of revelations about the role being played by psychologists in the planning of USM and Intelligence agency run interrogations.
David Sloan-Rossiter, Ph.D. moderated the event, he is co-chair of the Curriculum Committee at Boston Institute for Psychotherapy and Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis.
Background: Half of the members of the APA’s board have US Military ties and have been working under contract with US Military and intelligence agencies in areas involving the interrogation of US prisoners described as enemy combatants in the so-called war on terror.
The central question is whether or not psychologists and others in the mental health field should be working along side US Military and intelligence agency or prison interrogators. The challengers to the APA board want to see an end to any role that includes direct involvement in interrogations.
APA’s Ethics Director Stephen Behnke, agrees at least on the importance of raising this question. However, in a letter to the ACLU, American Civil Liberties Union, Stephen Behnke supported a continued role for psychologists in interrogations; a critique of his position from Stephen Soldz was published in Counterpunch May 27th.
The event in Brookline was sponsored by: The Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis, the Institute for the Study of Violence, the Boston Institute for Psychotherapy; Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, Brookline PeaceWorks, the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology, First Parish of Brookline, the Massachusetts Association for Psychoanalytic Psychology, the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis, Physicians for Human Rights, the Psychoanalytic Institute of New England and the Psychologists for Social Responsibility–End Torture Action Committee.
See part one below or click here
[...] Part one is available here: http://talknationradio.com/?p=145 Part two is available here: http://talknationradio.com/?p=146 Video is available here: http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/2008/03/23/may-3-torture-and-the-american-psyche/ and here http://tinyurl.com/6cck6s [...]