by Catherine Bailey
posted Jul 07, 2009 see YES! Magazine's "People We Love"
After hearing his sons’ ongoing frustration over the stereotypes of Islam they heard from schoolmates and the media, British producer Waseem Mahmood decided to take action—by creating a pop song and launching a movement.
Mahmood recruited Shuja Haider and Ali Moeen, Pakistan’s foremost lyricist, to write the song, “Yeh Hum Naheen” (“This is Not Us”). The lyrics, like these lines, translated from Urdu, take aim at misperceptions of Islam: “The name by which you know us—we are not that … The stories that are being spread in our name are lies—this is not us.”
Mahmood used the song to launch a petition drive in Pakistan condemning terrorism. Six thousand volunteers helped gather more than 60 million signatures.
“It’s very moving,” Mahmood says. “It’s almost as if we’ve given [the people of Pakistan] something they were waiting for.”
======
Today with so many events at an especially rich intersection, including the first time the UN celebrates HUMANITARIANS in a special way - let's look at Mahmood's message and create our own similar loving challenges for peace. (Connie - One Heart blogger)
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
Tonight in Albequerque: Kathy Kelly on Experiences in Pakistan and Gaza (Think Outside the Bomb)
Pakistani boy who's life has been disrupted due to the bombing in the NW Frontier region and lives in an abandoned building.
Come Hear KATHY KELLY (One of our most respected and most consistent US Peacemakers) Speak about her Experiences and/or TELL OTHERS who may be near the venue
Aug 17 2009 - 7:00pm
This event is part of outreach regarding the “Peaceable Assembly Campaign”
contact: 505-268-9557 or Michael Butler butler.a.michael@gmail.com
Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice
202 Harvard SE
Albuquerque, NM 87106
For More Info Go here
Ground the Drones Lest We Reap the Whirlwind - here
More of Kathy Kelly's Writings: here
Friday, August 14, 2009
Love and Goodwill to Pakistan for 14th August 2009
PAKISTAN NATIONAL ANTHEM
by Hafeez Jallundri
translation by Akhtar Wasim Dar
پاک سر زمین شادباد
کشور حسین شادباد
تو نشان عزم عالی شان
ارض پاکستان
مرکز یقین شادباد
پاک سرزمین کا نظام
قوت اخوت عوام
قوم ملک سلطنت
پایندہ تابندہ باد
شاد باد منزل مراد
پرچم ستارہ و ھلال
رہبر ترقی و کمال
ترجمان ماضی شان حال
جان استقبال
سایہ خداے ذوالجلال
Blessed be the Land of purity
Blessed be the beautiful country
You are the symbol of high courage and determination
Land of Pakistan
May this center of faith glow in ecstasy
Order of the land of pure
Lies in power of peoples love and affection
Nation, Country, State
May flourish in everlasting glaze
Blessed be the destiny of ambition
This Flag of Star and Crescent
Guide of progress and excellence
Reflective of past and brilliance of present
Future’s inspiration
Be under God Almighty’s care and protection.
**********
Akhtar Wasim Dar Sahib wrote this beautiful English translation of Pakistan's National Anthem for The Republic of Rumi Blog
See more items hosted-distributed, written and taught by historian, writer-journalist, filmaker and educationist, Khurram Ali Shafique Sahib:
“O beautiful land! May Allah keep you happy forever,” says Masroor Anwar (“Sohni Dharti, Allah rakhay…”). “May we see you free as long as the world lasts!”
For more references and music video Go here and here
Speaking of BEAUTY, here is another item from Akhtar Wasim Dar Sahib -
from his "pageonweb" blogpost -- Wednesday, 12 August 2009
ABC of Anger, Beauty and Compassion
According to a tradition of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH): Allah, the Exalted, is beautiful, and He loves beauty. What is Beauty? Beauty in aesthetics means a Balance. When we achieve Balance things look, feel and reflect Beauty. Our actions, thoughts, reactions, desires and speech are beautiful when they retain Balance.
Things become unbalanced...when we are not compassionate. When we are not compassionate, we become angry or violent. We become angry and violent when we are fearful, lonely and not empowered.
A little compassion, a little detachment, a little benevolence, a little grace, a little show of kindness can work miracles and can bring equilibrium and poise in a situation that has become disproportionate, ugly and unbalanced.
When we find somebody in need of help to Balance his Life, his affairs and his attitude, we must provide that little orientation that balances, so this person may become beautiful.
Allah the Exalted is Beautiful and Loves Beauty, so we must also act as the Beloved acts.
Find this page here
(oneheart blogger has slightly modified spacing and a few words)
Keep checking back for more post by Akhtar Wasim Dar Sahib whom I already view as one of the best poets and philosophers of our time!
US APA Heal Thyself PART II - End Torture Role
UPDATING through August (with more URLS, references to be added in post itself and/or under Comments)
Toward encouraging psychologists and lay people to support this effort:
"The positive side to the story is that people like Reisner and Arrigo, and many others, are continuing to keep the pressure on the APA for long delayed reform"
August 13th, 2009
UN Special Rapporteur on Torture on Torture Calls on American Psychological Association to Withdraw Psychologists from Guantánamo Detention Camp
During last week’s American Psychological Association convention in Toronto, the APA’s President James Bray received a letter from the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak. The letter declared that, in Dr. Nowak’s professional opinion, the Guantanamo detention facility is still in violation of international law. It therefore asked the APA to follow its own policy, as expressed in a member-passed referendum last September, and request removal of psychologists from Guantanamo. It further asked the APA to remove its infamous standard 1.02, which built the Nuremberg “just following orders” Defense into the APA’s ethics code.
Here is a Press Release issued Saturday by the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology, of which I’m a member. The Press Release is followed by Nowak’s letter:
United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Calls on American Psychological Association to Withdraw Psychologists from Guantánamo Detention Camp
Coalition for an Ethical Psychology demands APA comply with international law, medical ethics and its own policy prohibiting participation in human rights violations
Contacts:
Stephen Soldz
ssoldz@bgsp.edu
Steven Reisner
SReisner@psychoanalysis.net
August 8, 2009, Toronto — In a letter to the American Psychological Association, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak, warns that psychologists’ continued presence at Guantánamo Bay and similar detention settings violates international law, medical ethics, and APA’s own policy on psychologists and human rights. Dr. Nowak’s letter, issued during the association’s annual convention in Toronto, calls for both the removal of psychologists from those settings and for changes in the APA ethics code, which currently allows psychologists to follow military orders even if these conflict with medical ethics or human rights.
In 2008 the APA membership overwhelmingly approved a referendum prohibiting psychologists from working at sites that violate international law, specifically referencing the standards of the United Nations. In the wake of the letter from the UN Rapporteur, the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology echoed Dr. Nowak’s call for APA leadership to immediately implement the member-ratified policy.
“Given the crisis arising from Nowak’s findings, the APA leadership must act immediately to implement the members’ wishes as expressed in the referendum and call for the removal of psychologists from Guantánamo and other settings which remain outside of international law. Otherwise the APA and the profession of psychology risk further damage,” stated Stephen Soldz, co-founder of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology and President-elect of Psychologists for Social Responsibility.
In his letter, Nowak states clearly that, by UN standards, “the overall conditions of detention at Guantanamo Bay continue to be outside of international law.” He goes on to state, “it is incumbent upon the APA to ensure that its standards comport with international law as well as the UN Principles of Medical Ethics [which] require an absolute ethical prohibition of psychologists’ presence or involvement in these operations.” As an accredited non-governmental organization at the United Nations, the APA is mandated to uphold United Nations standards; otherwise that status may be jeopardized.
Nowak’s letter comes in response to APA’s continued failure to prohibit psychologists’ participation in detainee interrogations and conditions, even after recently released Justice Department memos, Senate and Defense Department reports have confirmed that psychologists played crucial roles in helping to design, implement, and provide training for the Bush administration program of detainee abuse and torture.
“Even today, long after the end of the Bush administration, detainees continue to be held in abusive conditions and psychologists continue to lend their expertise to legitimize these abuses,” said Steven Reisner, advisor on Psychological Ethics for Physicians for Human Rights and a co-founder of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology. “It is time to investigate and hold to account both the psychologists who devised and implemented the Bush administration programs of abuse and torture, and the APA for continued support of these psychologists, even after their essential role in the torture program was exposed.”
The Coalition further calls upon the APA to inform psychologists serving at Guantanamo and Bagram Air Base that they are serving in violation of APA policy.
As Nowak stated in his letter:
“Every day that you delay the referendum is another day where psychologists are, by their presence and participation in these operations, acquiescing in human rights violations. Following the APA’s own policy, on the other hand, would send a message that the health professionals maintain the highest ethical standards, refuse to participate in such violations, and do their part, with the support of their professional leadership, to bring these abuses and violations to an end.”
**********
The Coalition for an Ethical Psychology is an organization committed to putting psychology on firm ethical foundation. It has been at the forefront of the efforts to change APA’s policies regarding detainee abuse.
Here is Nowak’s letter:
Dear President Bray,
In 2007, the American Psychological Association’s Council of Representatives passed a ‘Resolution against Torture, Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment.’ That resolution states:
[T]he American Psychological Association is an accredited non-governmental organization at the United Nations and so is committed to promote and protect human rights in accordance with the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights…[and] consistent with international human rights instruments, as well as guidelines developed for health professionals, including but not limited to: Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions; The United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; The United Nations Principles of Medical Ethics Relevant to the Role of Health Personnel, particularly Physicians, in the Protection of Prisoners and Detainees against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; and The World Medical Association Declaration of Tokyo: Guidelines for Physicians Concerning Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in Relation to Detention and Imprisonment.
This was followed by a referendum passed overwhelmingly by the APA membership and approved as APA policy by Council in February 2009. The referendum states, in part:
Whereas the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Mental Health and the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture have determined that treatment equivalent to torture has been taking place at the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba….Be it resolved that psychologists may not work in settings where persons are held outside of, or in violation of, either International Law (e.g., the UN Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions) or the US Constitution (where appropriate), unless they are working directly for the persons being detained or for an independent third party working to protect human rights.
Clearly, the APA takes its obligations as an accredited NGO at the United Nations and its responsibilities to follow international instruments regarding the treatment of detainees and the ethical guidelines for health professionals seriously.
This is why I am writing to you now – to inform you that I consider the very fact that detainees have been and still are kept at Guantanamo Bay detention facilities, to constitute arbitrary detention and, therefore a violation of Article 9 ICCPR. It is definitely good news that these facilities are going to be closed at the latest by January 2010, and that the conditions of detention have certainly improved. Nevertheless, force feeding of hunger strikers with cruel methods is continuing, and I am very concerned about the mental conditions of some of the long term detainees. Apart from sporadic visits by the ICRC and their lawyers, the detainees have been in total isolation from their families and the outside world for many years, and they are kept in total uncertainty about the length of their detention. Together with the rough physical treatment and past practice of torture I certainly conclude that the overall conditions of detention at Guantanamo Bay constitutes to be “outside, or in violation of, international law”.
Given the now public record of psychologists’ involvement in the design, supervision, implementation, and legitimization of a regime of physical and psychological torture at US military and intelligence facilities, including Guantánamo, it is incumbent upon the APA to ensure that its standards comport with international law as well as the UN Principles of Medical Ethics Relevant to the Role of Health Personnel. These instruments require an absolute ethical prohibition of psychologists’ presence or involvement in these operations.
Thus, in keeping with both the APA’s own policy and relevant international law and ethical guidelines, I request that you do all that is necessary to:
a) invoke the referendum and immediately request that the Obama administration, the Department of Defense, and the US intelligence agencies remove psychologists from Guantánamo and any other sites where international law is being violated or where inspectors are prohibited from assessing that conditions are in compliance with international law.
b) Amend the APA ethics code (standards 1.02 and 1.03) where it permits psychologists to follow domestic law and military orders and regulations even when these conflict with international law, the United Nations Principles of Medical Ethics and the APA’s own ethics code.
Every day that you delay invoking the referendum is another day where psychologists are, by their presence and participation in these operations, acquiescing in human rights violations. Following the APA’s own policy, on the other hand, would send a message that health professionals maintain the highest ethical standards, refuse to participate in such violations, and do their part, with the support of their professional leadership, to bring these abuses and violations to an end.
Sincerely,
Manfred Nowak
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Manfred Nowak, LL.M.
Professor for International Human Rights, University of Vienna
Director, Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights
UN Special Rapporteur on Torture
Freyung 6, 1. Hof, Stiege II.
1010 Wien, Austria
Tel: +43 1 42 77 27 456
Fax: +43 1 42 77 27 429
Web: www.univie.ac.at/bim
See also the Center for Constitutional Rights press release on Nowak’s letter.
Toward encouraging psychologists and lay people to support this effort:
"The positive side to the story is that people like Reisner and Arrigo, and many others, are continuing to keep the pressure on the APA for long delayed reform"
August 13th, 2009
UN Special Rapporteur on Torture on Torture Calls on American Psychological Association to Withdraw Psychologists from Guantánamo Detention Camp
During last week’s American Psychological Association convention in Toronto, the APA’s President James Bray received a letter from the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak. The letter declared that, in Dr. Nowak’s professional opinion, the Guantanamo detention facility is still in violation of international law. It therefore asked the APA to follow its own policy, as expressed in a member-passed referendum last September, and request removal of psychologists from Guantanamo. It further asked the APA to remove its infamous standard 1.02, which built the Nuremberg “just following orders” Defense into the APA’s ethics code.
Here is a Press Release issued Saturday by the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology, of which I’m a member. The Press Release is followed by Nowak’s letter:
United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Calls on American Psychological Association to Withdraw Psychologists from Guantánamo Detention Camp
Coalition for an Ethical Psychology demands APA comply with international law, medical ethics and its own policy prohibiting participation in human rights violations
Contacts:
Stephen Soldz
ssoldz@bgsp.edu
Steven Reisner
SReisner@psychoanalysis.net
August 8, 2009, Toronto — In a letter to the American Psychological Association, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak, warns that psychologists’ continued presence at Guantánamo Bay and similar detention settings violates international law, medical ethics, and APA’s own policy on psychologists and human rights. Dr. Nowak’s letter, issued during the association’s annual convention in Toronto, calls for both the removal of psychologists from those settings and for changes in the APA ethics code, which currently allows psychologists to follow military orders even if these conflict with medical ethics or human rights.
In 2008 the APA membership overwhelmingly approved a referendum prohibiting psychologists from working at sites that violate international law, specifically referencing the standards of the United Nations. In the wake of the letter from the UN Rapporteur, the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology echoed Dr. Nowak’s call for APA leadership to immediately implement the member-ratified policy.
“Given the crisis arising from Nowak’s findings, the APA leadership must act immediately to implement the members’ wishes as expressed in the referendum and call for the removal of psychologists from Guantánamo and other settings which remain outside of international law. Otherwise the APA and the profession of psychology risk further damage,” stated Stephen Soldz, co-founder of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology and President-elect of Psychologists for Social Responsibility.
In his letter, Nowak states clearly that, by UN standards, “the overall conditions of detention at Guantanamo Bay continue to be outside of international law.” He goes on to state, “it is incumbent upon the APA to ensure that its standards comport with international law as well as the UN Principles of Medical Ethics [which] require an absolute ethical prohibition of psychologists’ presence or involvement in these operations.” As an accredited non-governmental organization at the United Nations, the APA is mandated to uphold United Nations standards; otherwise that status may be jeopardized.
Nowak’s letter comes in response to APA’s continued failure to prohibit psychologists’ participation in detainee interrogations and conditions, even after recently released Justice Department memos, Senate and Defense Department reports have confirmed that psychologists played crucial roles in helping to design, implement, and provide training for the Bush administration program of detainee abuse and torture.
“Even today, long after the end of the Bush administration, detainees continue to be held in abusive conditions and psychologists continue to lend their expertise to legitimize these abuses,” said Steven Reisner, advisor on Psychological Ethics for Physicians for Human Rights and a co-founder of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology. “It is time to investigate and hold to account both the psychologists who devised and implemented the Bush administration programs of abuse and torture, and the APA for continued support of these psychologists, even after their essential role in the torture program was exposed.”
The Coalition further calls upon the APA to inform psychologists serving at Guantanamo and Bagram Air Base that they are serving in violation of APA policy.
As Nowak stated in his letter:
“Every day that you delay the referendum is another day where psychologists are, by their presence and participation in these operations, acquiescing in human rights violations. Following the APA’s own policy, on the other hand, would send a message that the health professionals maintain the highest ethical standards, refuse to participate in such violations, and do their part, with the support of their professional leadership, to bring these abuses and violations to an end.”
**********
The Coalition for an Ethical Psychology is an organization committed to putting psychology on firm ethical foundation. It has been at the forefront of the efforts to change APA’s policies regarding detainee abuse.
Here is Nowak’s letter:
Dear President Bray,
In 2007, the American Psychological Association’s Council of Representatives passed a ‘Resolution against Torture, Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment.’ That resolution states:
[T]he American Psychological Association is an accredited non-governmental organization at the United Nations and so is committed to promote and protect human rights in accordance with the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights…[and] consistent with international human rights instruments, as well as guidelines developed for health professionals, including but not limited to: Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions; The United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; The United Nations Principles of Medical Ethics Relevant to the Role of Health Personnel, particularly Physicians, in the Protection of Prisoners and Detainees against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; and The World Medical Association Declaration of Tokyo: Guidelines for Physicians Concerning Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in Relation to Detention and Imprisonment.
This was followed by a referendum passed overwhelmingly by the APA membership and approved as APA policy by Council in February 2009. The referendum states, in part:
Whereas the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Mental Health and the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture have determined that treatment equivalent to torture has been taking place at the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba….Be it resolved that psychologists may not work in settings where persons are held outside of, or in violation of, either International Law (e.g., the UN Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions) or the US Constitution (where appropriate), unless they are working directly for the persons being detained or for an independent third party working to protect human rights.
Clearly, the APA takes its obligations as an accredited NGO at the United Nations and its responsibilities to follow international instruments regarding the treatment of detainees and the ethical guidelines for health professionals seriously.
This is why I am writing to you now – to inform you that I consider the very fact that detainees have been and still are kept at Guantanamo Bay detention facilities, to constitute arbitrary detention and, therefore a violation of Article 9 ICCPR. It is definitely good news that these facilities are going to be closed at the latest by January 2010, and that the conditions of detention have certainly improved. Nevertheless, force feeding of hunger strikers with cruel methods is continuing, and I am very concerned about the mental conditions of some of the long term detainees. Apart from sporadic visits by the ICRC and their lawyers, the detainees have been in total isolation from their families and the outside world for many years, and they are kept in total uncertainty about the length of their detention. Together with the rough physical treatment and past practice of torture I certainly conclude that the overall conditions of detention at Guantanamo Bay constitutes to be “outside, or in violation of, international law”.
Given the now public record of psychologists’ involvement in the design, supervision, implementation, and legitimization of a regime of physical and psychological torture at US military and intelligence facilities, including Guantánamo, it is incumbent upon the APA to ensure that its standards comport with international law as well as the UN Principles of Medical Ethics Relevant to the Role of Health Personnel. These instruments require an absolute ethical prohibition of psychologists’ presence or involvement in these operations.
Thus, in keeping with both the APA’s own policy and relevant international law and ethical guidelines, I request that you do all that is necessary to:
a) invoke the referendum and immediately request that the Obama administration, the Department of Defense, and the US intelligence agencies remove psychologists from Guantánamo and any other sites where international law is being violated or where inspectors are prohibited from assessing that conditions are in compliance with international law.
b) Amend the APA ethics code (standards 1.02 and 1.03) where it permits psychologists to follow domestic law and military orders and regulations even when these conflict with international law, the United Nations Principles of Medical Ethics and the APA’s own ethics code.
Every day that you delay invoking the referendum is another day where psychologists are, by their presence and participation in these operations, acquiescing in human rights violations. Following the APA’s own policy, on the other hand, would send a message that health professionals maintain the highest ethical standards, refuse to participate in such violations, and do their part, with the support of their professional leadership, to bring these abuses and violations to an end.
Sincerely,
Manfred Nowak
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Manfred Nowak, LL.M.
Professor for International Human Rights, University of Vienna
Director, Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights
UN Special Rapporteur on Torture
Freyung 6, 1. Hof, Stiege II.
1010 Wien, Austria
Tel: +43 1 42 77 27 456
Fax: +43 1 42 77 27 429
Web: www.univie.ac.at/bim
See also the Center for Constitutional Rights press release on Nowak’s letter.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
APA: Heal Thyself PART I: End Torture Role!
This is the beginning of an effort for lay persons to support US Psychologists who want to end their fellows' involvment with torture. So for awhile until we form properly under the leadership of Psychologists, here are some updates and history of this effort.
Also see earlier posts on One Heart...
http://oneheartforpeace.blogspot.com/2009/07/stopping-torture-business-in-our.html
http://oneheartforpeace.blogspot.com/2009/08/will-apa-be-first-in-dock.html
http://oneheartforpeace.blogspot.com/2009/08/children-detained-and-tortured-by-us.html
PART ONE: UPDATES since the recent Annual Conference in Toronto
Oregonian: A shadow has fallen on the profession, and the APA (American Psychologists Association): The Oregonian editorializes on the American Psychological Association’s relationship with US torture and detainee abuse. It contains PERHAPS THE STRONGEST condemnation of the APA so far:
A SHADOW HAS FALLEN on the profession, and the APA — and rightfully so.
The complete editorial:
Psychologists linked to Bush-era torture cast the profession in a bad light
By Editorial Board, The Oregonian
New details about the work of two psychologists after Sept. 11
raise questions about the American Psychological Association, too
You already know that the Constitution was mangled after Sept. 11, and that Bush-administration lawyers stretched U.S. law beyond recognition to rationalize torture. Less well known is the contribution two psychologists made to brutal interrogations.
On Wednesday, The New York Times showed how the two psychologists — both military retirees — became architects and early overseers of the Central Intelligence Agency’s harsh interrogation techniques.
To be fair, the two seem to have been infected by the same group-think panic that affected others within the administration. Said The Times:
Col. Steven M. Kleinman, an Air Force interrogator and intelligence officer who knows (the two psychologists), said he thought loyalty to their country in the panicky wake of the Sept. 11 attacks prompted their excursion into interrogation.He said the result was a tragedy for the country, and for them. “I feel their primary motivation was they thought they had skills and insights that would make the nation safer,” Colonel Kleinman said. “But good persons in extreme circumstances can do horrific things.”
What the newspaper did not touch on is the criticism, internal soul-searching and disgust within the psychology profession prompted by the role these two played. The American Psychological Association itself has come in for considerable criticism, often from its own members, because the APA failed to distance itself, early on, from the chilling notion that it was OK for psychologists to oversee military interrogations.
The rationalization has been that “24″-style situations would be even worse if psychologists weren’t around to put the brakes on. Some have said that the real fear, within the profession, was of limiting job opportunities within the military and chances for federal grants.
But no matter what the motivation, it’s pretty hard to understand how psychologists could ever countenance harsh interrogation techniques, like waterboarding, that qualify as torture. The ground-breaking experiments that psychologists have done, illuminating the tendency for humans to inflict pain on other humans when asked to do so by an authority figure, ought to have pointed the profession in the opposite direction.
In totalitarian countries, there’s a long history of “mental health” practitioners being entertwined with thought-controls and imprisonment. And this history should have made psychologists wary, as well. A chilling echo of this reverberates in the details about the psychologists, who seem to have set the dosage of discomfort for captives, and may have helped to ease the consciences of the people involved by giving harsh techniques a stamp of approval.
A shadow has fallen on the profession, and the APA — and rightfully so.
Also see earlier posts on One Heart...
http://oneheartforpeace.blogspot.com/2009/07/stopping-torture-business-in-our.html
http://oneheartforpeace.blogspot.com/2009/08/will-apa-be-first-in-dock.html
http://oneheartforpeace.blogspot.com/2009/08/children-detained-and-tortured-by-us.html
PART ONE: UPDATES since the recent Annual Conference in Toronto
Oregonian: A shadow has fallen on the profession, and the APA (American Psychologists Association): The Oregonian editorializes on the American Psychological Association’s relationship with US torture and detainee abuse. It contains PERHAPS THE STRONGEST condemnation of the APA so far:
A SHADOW HAS FALLEN on the profession, and the APA — and rightfully so.
The complete editorial:
Psychologists linked to Bush-era torture cast the profession in a bad light
By Editorial Board, The Oregonian
New details about the work of two psychologists after Sept. 11
raise questions about the American Psychological Association, too
You already know that the Constitution was mangled after Sept. 11, and that Bush-administration lawyers stretched U.S. law beyond recognition to rationalize torture. Less well known is the contribution two psychologists made to brutal interrogations.
On Wednesday, The New York Times showed how the two psychologists — both military retirees — became architects and early overseers of the Central Intelligence Agency’s harsh interrogation techniques.
To be fair, the two seem to have been infected by the same group-think panic that affected others within the administration. Said The Times:
Col. Steven M. Kleinman, an Air Force interrogator and intelligence officer who knows (the two psychologists), said he thought loyalty to their country in the panicky wake of the Sept. 11 attacks prompted their excursion into interrogation.He said the result was a tragedy for the country, and for them. “I feel their primary motivation was they thought they had skills and insights that would make the nation safer,” Colonel Kleinman said. “But good persons in extreme circumstances can do horrific things.”
What the newspaper did not touch on is the criticism, internal soul-searching and disgust within the psychology profession prompted by the role these two played. The American Psychological Association itself has come in for considerable criticism, often from its own members, because the APA failed to distance itself, early on, from the chilling notion that it was OK for psychologists to oversee military interrogations.
The rationalization has been that “24″-style situations would be even worse if psychologists weren’t around to put the brakes on. Some have said that the real fear, within the profession, was of limiting job opportunities within the military and chances for federal grants.
But no matter what the motivation, it’s pretty hard to understand how psychologists could ever countenance harsh interrogation techniques, like waterboarding, that qualify as torture. The ground-breaking experiments that psychologists have done, illuminating the tendency for humans to inflict pain on other humans when asked to do so by an authority figure, ought to have pointed the profession in the opposite direction.
In totalitarian countries, there’s a long history of “mental health” practitioners being entertwined with thought-controls and imprisonment. And this history should have made psychologists wary, as well. A chilling echo of this reverberates in the details about the psychologists, who seem to have set the dosage of discomfort for captives, and may have helped to ease the consciences of the people involved by giving harsh techniques a stamp of approval.
A shadow has fallen on the profession, and the APA — and rightfully so.
What We Share - see Films: "American Ramadan" and "Amreeka"!
If you are in California USA - try calling the following number as there may be more showings than the ones listed - or perhaps you might find out how to rent or buy for your groups' own showing? CALL 510-521-9405 in USA for more information. And/or try to find the trailer and information on line and see it as soon as possible. Also, find trailers, more info and dates when these movies may be coming to your US area and/or have a notice sent to you when they do here and for Amreeka Go here
Don't Miss "American Ramadan" and "Amreeka"!
It's about commonality...
American Ramadan
Produced & directed by Naeem Randhawa
Film Screening & Discussion led by Bachir Hadid
Friday, August 14, 2009 7- 9pm
Alameda Multicultural Community Center, Longfellow Education Center
500 Pacific Ave., Building A, Room 7
Enter Room 7 from Lincoln Ave.
(2 doors from corner of Lincoln & 5th)
Free family and community event *** Childcare provided *** Refreshments
Sponsored by the Alameda Multicultural Community Center
For information: 510-521-9405 or alamulticultural@ gmail.com
"American Ramadan" is a bold and exciting new look at the American Muslim experience, produced and masterfully captured by first time director Naeem Randhawa. "American Ramadan" explores and reveals the holiest of rituals, shared by the Abrahamic traditions, but practiced by more - the act of Fasting for Faith. As diverse as the fabric of America, from the divorced Dad, the student coping with school, work and family life, the convert to Islam and his Indonesian wife, an interracial couple, and the wife of an incarcerated businessman - the reality of life is vividly and emotionally witnessed on film.
Amreeka
Written and Directed by Cherien Dabis
With the Filmmaker!
Thursday, August 27th 2009 - 7pm Embarcadero Theater
One Embarcadero Center, San Francisco
Amreeka chronicles the adventures of Muna, a single mother who leaves the West Bank with Fadi, her teenage son, with dreams of an exciting future in the promised land of small town Illinois. In America, as her son navigates high school hallways the way he used to move through military checkpoints, the indomitable Muna scrambles together a new life cooking up falafel burgers as well as hamburgers at the local White Castle.
Contact: Arab Film Festival at info@aff.org
Sponsored By: Arab Film Festival and National Geographic Entertainment
Tickets: $20 General / $15 Students
NOAM CHOMSKY: "Obama, the Middle East, and the Prospects for Peace"
Saturday, October 3, 2009 - 7:30pm
The Paramount Theatre, downtown Oakland
2025 Broadway, adjacent to the 19th street BART
For directions, parking, and other info: www.paramounttheatre.com
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Today's the 60th Anniversary of the GENEVA Conventions: Read US Military letter to the APA: Drop the Nuremberg Defense from psychologist ethics code
The First Nuremberg Trial: Nuremberg Defendents
Find more photos here
The International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) celebrates the 60th anniversary of 4 Geneva Conventions signed 60 years ago today on August 12, 1949
In keeping with this spirit, please read this letter but first see this revealing brief video: No Place to Hide: Torture, Psychologists and the APA here by Roy Eidelson, Psychologist
Also see the new related items which have just come from Center for Constitutional Rights at CCR Justice dot org
To know the background of this letter Go here
The Military Letter
Capt. Lawrence Rockwood (ret.), the author of Walking Away from Nuremberg: Just War and the Doctrine of Command Responsibility,has organized the following letter from military figures to the American Psychological Association. The Letter expresses dismay by these military people to the inclusion of ethics standard 1.02 — the Nuremberg “just following orders” Defense — in the APA ethics code. [See attorney Scott Horton's comments on 1.02 at his Harpers blog as well as Stephen Soldz' related posts.]
The military letter was sent to President Bray and the members of the APA Council of Representatives:
August 4, 2009
To President James A. Bray and the Council of Representatives of the American Psychological Association:
We write as concerned, veteran military and intelligence professionals. If the American Psychological Association (APA) retains Section 1.02 in its Ethics Code, the APA will place itself in opposition to some of the best traditions of the American military profession. Section 1.02 of the APA Ethics Code undermines not only the good order and discipline of military and intelligence professionals who happen also to be psychologists, but also their responsibilities under official military doctrine and professional military ethics. This section of the APA code entails an exemption that a psychologist can follow an order from a government employer even if it is otherwise contraindicated by the APA code. This section of the APA code disregards the Nuremberg Principles as recognized in 1950 by UN General Assembly Resolution 177 and incorporated into American military doctrine in the 1956 publication of Field Manual 27-10, The Law of Armed Conflict.
The Nuremberg Principles were drafted in the United States War Department during the last year of the Second World War. Two major themes of the Nuremberg Principles have been incorporated into American military doctrine: (1) commanders and government officials are responsible for the criminal acts of their subordinates, and (2) that a person acts in response to an order from a government or of a superior does not relieve him or her from personal criminal responsibility. In the case of the prosecution for the massacre of unarmed civilians in My Lai in Vietnam in March 1968, a military court categorically ruled out the so-called Nuremberg Defense in a defense of an accused war criminal who claimed an order(s) from superiors sanctioned an otherwise criminal act.
The professional normative standards of the military professional as a whole are binding on psychologists within the military. We therefore ask that the APA remove Section 1.02, or any equivalent statement, in the APA Ethics Code and any other APA policy inconsistent with official military doctrine, professional military ethics, and the standards of international humanitarian law.
Lawrence P. Rockwood, PhD, Former Captain, US Army Counterintelligence
Author: Walking Away from Nuremberg: Just War and the Doctrine of Command Responsibility in the American Military Profession, 2007, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2007.
David C. MacMichael, Ph.D., former senior estimates officer, National Security Council, former captain, USMC
Terrence Karney, Former Staff Sergeant, US Army: Interrogator, and Interrogation Instructor
Peter Weiss, Sergeant, Military Intelligence, 1945, served as interrogator
of high-value German detainee in Nuremberg
Matthew Alexander, former senior interrogator for the U.S. military in Iraq,
Author: How to Break a Terrorist, 2008. New York: Free Press.
David DeBatto, U.S. Army Counterintelligence Special Agent (ret.)
C.B. Scott Jones, Ph.D. Commander, USN Retired. South Asia Naval Intelligence, J-2 U.S. European Command, Scientific and Technical Intelligence Analyst
Virenda Verma, M.Sc., Col., Indian Army Intelligence Retired. Visiting Fellow – Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi. India-Pakistan Soldiers Initiative for Peace, Founder. Tibet Study Group, Founder and General Secretary.
Herbert Ely, Retired from Department of the Army, Senior Intelligence Analyst
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Here is a helpful letter which you can also send to AG Eric Holder and edit as you wish:
here
And here is another URGENT letter suggestion JUST IN from Center for Constitutional Rights:
News reports are now saying the Attorney General is close to appointing a Special Prosecutor, but it doesn't look like good news. Insiders say Eric Holder wants to limit the scope of the prosecutor's investigation to low-level CIA operatives and let those who ordered, designed, and justified the torture program off the hook. Before it's too late, please write Holder today, and tell him not to tie the Prosecutor's hands but to let the investigation go as far up the chain of command as the facts lead.
This is a key opportunity for us to put the Obama administration on the right track, because it is currently in violation of U.S. law: Dick Cheney admitted his role in waterboarding and said he would do it again; the new Attorney General, Eric Holder, said that waterboarding is torture; and the Convention Against Torture, which is U.S. law, requires the administration to initiate a meaningful criminal investigation when torture occurs.
Should Eric Holder limit the scope of the Special Prosecutor's investigation to focus on "just a few bad apples" he would be allowing high level government officials to shield themselves with the very torture memos they created to break the law in the first place. And what about the lawyers like John Yoo, Jay Bybee and David Addington who tried to rig the law to justify their bosses' actions? They must be investigated, too.
President Obama has told us and the world that no one is above the law. Prosecuting the high-level former officials responsible for torture can give a measure of justice to the victims and provide the strongest deterrent against future administrations going down this dark path again. Prosecution will also be a clear signal to countries around the world that the U.S. has drawn the line at torture. No executive order, policy change or new legislation will have that same power.
Stand with CCR in the fight for justice. Tell the Attorney General to appoint an independent Special Prosecutor to hold the entire Torture Team accountable.
here
(SIGN or write your own)
Sincerely,
Vincent Warren
Executive Director
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Here is my version to Attorney General - Eric Holder - yet I plan to write another one still which is completely in my own words:
TODAY is the 60th Anniversary of the Geneva Conventions. We are glad to hear reports that you are seriously considering a special prosecutor to independently investigate torture and other abuses. At the same time, we urge that you go ALL the way in implementing the complete investigation s so critical to restoring the reputation of the Justice Department as an independent agency that upholds the rule of law.Such an investigation should not be limited. This effort should be politically independent and allow the facts to determine where the investigation leads. The investigation should not only include those who carried out torture. This investigation need to include those who developed the policy and facilitated it through legal memoranda and other actions.
The Justice Department reputation for independence cannot be restored without a full investigation, including holding DOJ officials responsible for their actions.
Please help restore the United States Constitution fully and our standing in the world community.
WE OWE A MUCH BETTER LEGACY TO OUR CHILDREN!
Sincerely,Connie L. Nash and 30 or so members of Transylvanians for Peace
Although I am one who seeks to help end all wars peacefully and seek other options for solving differences of which there are many. At the same time, I admire the courage and the distinction these military show in their well-written letter. We need many more leaders who show the same unity and speak out now and ALL of us need to speak out now! This is NO time for silence on such grave matters.
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