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From the Blog of Stephen Soldz: Psychoanalyst, Psychologist, Researcher, and Activist
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Will Obama cave to CIA torturers on discolosure?
April 15th, 2009
The Wall Street Journal* reports that Obama is about to cave to the protect-the-torturers-at-all-costs faction.
The Obama administration is leaning toward keeping secret some graphic details of tactics allowed in Central Intelligence Agency interrogations, despite a push by some top officials to make the information public, according to people familiar with the discussions.
These people cautioned that President Barack Obama is still reviewing internal arguments over the release of Justice Department memorandums related to CIA interrogations, and how much information will be made public is in flux.
Among the details in the still-classified memos is approval for a technique in which a prisoner’s head could be struck against a wall as long as the head was being held and the force of the blow was controlled by the interrogator, according to people familiar with the memos. Another approved tactic was waterboarding, or simulated drowning.
A decision to keep secret key parts of the three 2005 memos outlining legal guidance on CIA interrogations would anger some Obama supporters who have pushed him to unveil now-abandoned Bush-era tactics. It would also go against the views of Attorney General Eric Holder and White House Counsel Greg Craig, people familiar with the matter said.
Top CIA officials have spoken out strongly against a full release, saying it would undermine the agency’s credibility with foreign intelligence services and hurt the agency’s work force, people involved in the discussions said. However, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair favors releasing the information, current and former senior administration officials said.
Human-rights groups and many in the administration have called the techniques torture.
People familiar with the matter said some senior intelligence advisers to the president raised fears that releasing the two most sensitive memos could cause the Obama administration to be alienated from the CIA’s rank and file, as happened during the Bush administration when Porter Goss, who was unpopular among CIA officers, headed the agency.
They want to hide the details of their crimes:
Under one option, the outlines of which were described by current and former government officials close to the discussions, the administration would ask a judge to keep secret large parts of the Bradbury memos. Two of the memos contain particularly explicit details of methods and describe combinations of tactics that were deemed to fall within the bounds of the Geneva Convention on torture, according to people who have read them.
Two or three proposals that would reveal varying degrees of detail contained in the memos about the CIA program are before the president, another senior administration official said.
This is a defining moment for the Obama administration. If it makes the wrong decision, in some ways it may ever recover. It will have cast its lot in with the torturers and not with human rights or common decency.
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Note from oneheartforpeace: remember who owns the Wall Street Journal.
Keep following Stephen Soldz' blog - this psychologist's work is more pertinent than most experts and writer - as he is well-versed in this issue - a strong activist for NO TOLERANCE for torture among US Psychologists/ APA
Related:
APA Votes to Ban Participation in Torture « OPEN ANTHROPOLOGYAPA has specifically prohibited 19 interrogation techniques as torture here
APA Complicit in CIA Torture | here
Democracy Now! Ex-APA President Linked to CIA Torture Program. New information has been revealed... here
Invictus: A blog on U.S. Politics and the Fight Against TortureFederal Judge Rules Against Obama's Ban on Habeas at Bagram .... who have already withheld their dues from the APA, who intend to withhold 2009 dues (Keep Watching this blog!)
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Will psychologists still abet torture? | Salon NewsAug 21, 2007 ... The APA has condemned torture in the past. ... definitions in U.S. law for violations of the Geneva Conventions, which ban torture internationally.
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