Healers or tormentors?

Like so many who are willing to take advantage of this “great information highway,” I have known about the practice of “rendering” for years - long before the MSM even got a whiff of it.

“Rendering” is the CIA’s practice of moving prisoners (read: suspected terrorists) to “black sites,” prisons in countries which have no laws restricting the use of torture.

That’s why this note from a friend, "the goddess Athena," fired my curiosity:

“Some strangeness happened within the field of psychology last week. There was a big APA conference, and the topic was a task force report on psychologists' involvement in the rendition and interrogation of detainees held in CIA black sites around the globe. The task force was on whether psychologists should be participating in torture. It created a big uproar and debate among psychologists and a protest. Did you hear about it? The crazy thing was that the task force was made up of nine psychologists, and six of them were from the Department of Defense! Well, you can guess that the task force concluded that it is OK for psychologists to participate in interrogations. Go figure.”

“Democracy Now!” host Amy Goodman’s column, “Psychologists in denial about torture,” 22 August 2007, (LINK) gives an excellent recap of the "uproar" within the American Psychological Association (APA).

The rift? Goodman writes:

“Defenders of the APA's position are clear: psychologists need to be present at the interrogations to protect the prisoners, to ensure that the interrogators do not go over the line.

“Critics argue that psychologists are there to help interrogators push the line further and further, to consult with the interrogators on how best to break the prisoners.”

The 148,000-member APA “rejected a moratorium that would have prevented its member psychologists from participating in interrogations at U.S. detention centers at such places as Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and secret CIA ‘black sites’ around the world.”

The ACLU’s Anthony Romero had warned the APA: "We have found troubling evidence of the collusion of medical psychologists in the development and implementation of procedures intended to inflict psychological harm on prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and other facilities."

Ms. Goodman concludes her column using Romero’s final plea to the APA:

"The history of torture is inexorably linked to the misuse of scientific and medical knowledge. As we move fully into the 21st Century, it is no longer enough to denounce or to speak out against torture; rather, we must sever the connection between healers and tormentors once and for all. As guardians of the mind, psychologists are duty bound to promote the humane treatment of all people."

How does it go? "First, do no harm ..."