At the same time, APA and its leaders co-sponsored and participated in invitation-only conferences and high-level meetings with the CIA, the FBI, and White House officials. A key focus involved positioning organized psychology to advance the Bush administration's agenda, through psychological research on detecting deception and related topics. Meanwhile, the psychologists' participation in detention and interrogation operations was institutionalized through the Defense Department's creation of Behavioral Science Consultation Teams (BSCTs). Official records show that team members offered their psychological guidance in efficiently breaking down the prisoners and effectively adjusting their experience of pain, fear, and anguish. The Defense Department's description of these activities was very different: by their account, the participation of psychologists helped to keep detention and interrogation operations "safe, legal, ethical, and effective." APA readily adopted that mantra.
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I started from my sleep with horror; a cold dew covered my forehead, my teeth chattered, and every limb became convulsed: when, by the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window shutters, I beheld the wretch -- the miserable monster whom I had created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped, and rushed down stairs. (Frankenstein, Chapter 5)
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Monstrosity III
In 2004, the photos from Abu Ghraib and journalists' revelations of torture at Guantanamo provided the public -- and many psychologists -- with the first glimpse of the horrors that the "war on terror" had let loose: the furtive trampling of basic human rights, international law, and founding principles of U.S. democracy. Now faced with the flames of growing controversy, APA leaders brought forth yet another monstrosity to defend their highly prized turf. With guidance from the military-intelligence community, the APA created the 2005 Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security, which then produced the PENS Report. The Task Force was comprised predominantly of psychologists on the payroll of U.S. military/intelligence agencies -- several of whom served in the very chains of command accused of the abuses the task force was purportedly convened to address.
High-level APA staff members were present to make sure the blueprint was followed without deviation. Over a three-day period shrouded in secrecy, the PENS Report was brought to life. As planned internally from the very outset, the Report asserted that psychologists indeed play a valuable role in keeping national security interrogations safe, legal, ethical, and effective -- just as the Department of Defense had claimed beforehand. Then in an emergency session, the APA's Board of Directors quickly and officially approved the Report, bypassing a vote by the full Council of Representatives. The key message of the PENS Report was immediately clear to psychologists and interested parties everywhere: our ethics code need not unduly shackle us, we may continue to do the White House's bidding.
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At these moments I wept bitterly, and wished that peace would revisit my mind only that I might afford them consolation and happiness. But that could not be. Remorse extinguished every hope. I had been the author of unalterable evils; and I lived in daily fear, lest the monster whom I had created should perpetrate some new wickedness. I had an obscure feeling that all was not over, and that he would still commit some signal crime, which by its enormity should almost efface the recollection of the past. (Frankenstein, Chapter 9)
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Monstrosity IV
The PENS Report was understandably greeted by a chorus of criticism from individuals and groups concerned about human rights and psychological ethics. Rather than acknowledging the legitimacy of this harsh denunciation, APA leaders chose to breathe life into another monstrosity: an Orwellian public relations campaign crafted to torture the truth and to feign outrage over accusations of psychologist wrongdoing. APA spokespersons took to their megaphones to proclaim loudly that they would sanction any professional misconduct brought to their attention -- but have failed to even adjudicate the detailed and well-documented ethics complaints brought before them. Instead they lauded the courage and unique skills of psychologists engaged in detention and interrogation operations. A representative of the APA's military psychology division declared that "people are going to die" if psychologists are removed from Guantanamo.
Simultaneously, APA leaders were engaged in a much broader creative enterprise. They worked to construct a persuasive account that would further expand the opportunities available to psychologists in the national security arena. The narrative's foundation was the PENS Report, which asserted that it is ethical for psychologists to be involved in "war on terror" detention and interrogation operations. Upon that frame were built reinterpretations of the APA Ethics Code that took long-standing ethical principles and ground them to sand. One common refrain was the claim that, at places like Guantanamo, the psychologist's client is actually the U.S. military (or another security agency), not the prisoner being subjected to harm, coercion, and abuse. Likewise, ethical concerns surrounding informed consent, confidentiality, and exploitation were deemed to be inconsequential whenever they posed obstacles to the mission.
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Had I right, for my own benefit, to inflict this curse upon everlasting generations? I had before been moved by the sophisms of the being I had created; I had been struck senseless by his fiendish threats: but now, for the first time, the wickedness of my promise burst upon me; I shuddered to think that future ages might curse me as their pest, whose selfishness had not hesitated to buy its own peace at the price, perhaps, of the existence of the whole human race. (Frankenstein, Chapter 20)
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