The following is Irene Landsman’s Letter to the Editor which was sent to The New York Times but has not been published as yet.
American Psychological Association President Nadine Kaslow (Letters, December 13) is shocked and dismayed that two psychologists were named in the Senate torture report. Relieved not to have been mentioned itself, the APA focuses on two “bad apples” in a spin designed to deflect attention from its own longstanding, well-documented complicity in the worst excess of the Bush-era war on terror.
The APA sought to make psychologists indispensible in rationalizing and legalizing practices long held to be torture, and gladly stepped into the breach when the American Medical and American Psychiatric Associations prohibited their members from participating.
The code of ethics was quietly changed to allow psychologist-interrogators to invoke the “Nuremberg defense.” An official statement on psychological ethics and national security was crafted in collaboration with military and intelligence staff to permit psychologists to remain involved in interrogation, thereby serving to legitimize abuse.
The APA thwarted internal dissent through procedural maneuvers, unceasing denials, obfuscation, and by Ad hominem attacks and false allegations against psychologists who criticized the organization’s actions.
Kaslow’s letter suggests that the APA remains far from comprehending its essential role in this ethical travesty.
–Irene Landsman