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The CIA's Torture Teachers, psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen [see Eban and Mayer for a reminder of their work], are in the news again. In a front page New York Times article on the interrogation of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, it is mentioned that the subject of the story, Deuce Martinez is now employed by the dynamic torture firm: His life today is quiet by comparison with the secret interrogations of 2002 and 2003. But Mr. Martinez has not turned away entirely from his old world. He now works for Mitchell & Jessen Associates, a consulting company run by former military psychologists who advised the C.I.A. on the use of harsh tactics in the secret program. And his new employer sent Mr. Martinez right back to the agency. For now, the unlikely interrogator of the man perhaps most responsible for the horrors of 9/11 teaches other C.I.A. analysts the arcane art of tracking terrorists. As Katherine Eban explaines what was so distinctive about this firm:
They exemplified the CIA's humane treatment of detainees:
It seems that the coffin may not in the end have been used. So Deuce Martinez, so according to the Times followed torture sessions with "rapport-based" session, getting KSM to talk. They report that he turned down a CIA offer of specialized training in the "enhanced interrogation techniques," aka torture, not because he objected but because he believed his talents lay elsewhere.As Eban explians, that training would have been with the torture duo:
The very fact that he accepted employment with the nation's premier torture firm indicates that he had no ethical qualms about the Mitchell-Jessen approach. The American Psychological Association has a long relationship with Mitchell and Jessen. Their firm was authorized to give APA Continuing Education credits, though rumor indicates that may no longer be the case:
After the Mitchell-Jessen directed torture of Abu Zubaydah resulted in numerous false leads that wasted thousands of hours of law enforcement time, the CIA together with the APA and the Rand Corporation conducted an invitation-only workshop on the Science of Deception, Mitchell, Jessen, and their likely CIA supervisor, Kirk Hubbard, were invited. Many APA leaders were likely also there, so it strains credulity that they are not intimately aware of Mitchell and Jessen's work. Interestingly, the APA leadership has conveniently "lost" the attendance list. As a further indication of APA's connection to the CIA's torture firm, one of the five "governing people" on the torture firm's Board is former American Psychological Association President, Joseph Matarazzo. The APA is intensely disturbed by President Matzrazzo's possible involvement in torture as can be gleamed from these ethically-principled quotes from APA leadership when Matzrazzo's involvement was revealed last summer:
http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/ Stephen Soldz is psychoanalyst, psychologist, public health researcher, and faculty member at the Institute for the Study of Violence of the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis. He is a member of Roslindale Neighbors for Peace and Justice. He maintains the Psyche, Science, and Society blog.
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