The thorough devastation to our nation in BushCo’s push for war includes the myriad institutions they co-opted and perverted in order to keep doing WTFTW:
The American Psychological Association secretly collaborated with the administration of President George W. Bush to bolster a legal and ethical justification for the torture of prisoners swept up in the post-Sept. 11 war on terror, according to a new report by a group of dissident health professionals and human rights activists.
The report is the first to examine the association’s role in the interrogation program. It contends, using newly disclosed emails, that the group’s actions to keep psychologists involved in the interrogation program coincided closely with efforts by senior Bush administration officials to salvage the program after the public disclosure in 2004 of graphic photos of prisoner abuse by American military personnel at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
“The A.P.A. secretly coordinated with officials from the C.I.A., White House and the Department of Defense to create an A.P.A. ethics policy on national security interrogations which comported with then-classified legal guidance authorizing the C.I.A. torture program,” the report’s authors conclude.
Wankercons like Brooks and Douthat like to sigh and moan about how the populace has little faith in long cherished public institutions, but they never make the connection to the fact that the reason the people have no faith in these institutions, whether they be government, the medical community, religious institutions, big business, the police, etc., is because conservatives have spent the last half century destroying them in order to achieve their own short term political goals. The Republicans have wage a war on people who know things, and then act shocked that no one trust scientists and teachers and politicians.
Linnaeus
Not just short term. There’s a long game here, too.
Kryptik
Don’t forget the consistent denigration of the institutions that they didn’t dig their grubby hooks into.
Cacti
In a just world, every medical and mental health professional that participated in the “enhanced interrogation” program would have their professional licenses revoked for life.
rikyrah
they have never, and I mean, never given two shyts about the effects of their policies on the regular troops.
they do not care about them.
they do not give a shyt about them.
once they have been used for fodder for the MIC, the GOP could give a rat’s azz about them, which accounts for my fury and these muthaphuckas being held up as supporting the troops.
GMAFB.
they support Defense Contractors.
they don’t give two shyts about the actual grunts that fight the wars that they lie us into.
Turgidson
@Linnaeus:
Came in to say the same thing. I’d even say the long game has been their primary focus until recently. Now that the braindead dolts they’ve cultivated as their loyal but completely demented voting bloc has decided they’re no longer content to just be pandered to for elections and then ignored, short term-oriented stupidity and destruction is taking on a much more prominent role. They even want to nominate one of their own (or a more convincing con artist, at least) for president.
But the destruction of institutions is a huge part of the long game, no doubt. Convincing a big chunk of the US public that government doesn’t work and is in fact more of an enemy than a force for good has been a concerted 50+-year project.
jl
I think the only authority, institutions, and traditions that the likes of Douthat and Brooks long for people to respect are Douthat and Brooks, and whoever funds their easy pundit lifestyles.
Roger Moore
It’s the reverse Midas effect. Everything W touched turned to shit, and when Obama tried to clean up after him, he got blamed for smelling like a sewer.
Hungry Joe
Education is the big prize. Vilify teachers, destroy teachers unions, slash budgets … in short, do everything you can convince people that public schools don’t work. Then funnel the money — and educating all the children in the United States takes A LOT of money — into private, for-profit schools. You think health-care execs make big bucks? Wait’ll you see what corporate school CEOs will siphon off once they take control, and education is “run like a business.”
trollhattan
Holy sh*t that’s a huge stain on the A.P.A. Are we going to now discover the A.M.A. was in cahoots with Dr. Mengele? (Hey, why not, haven’t gone Godwin in weeks.)
BGinCHI
If that doesn’t teach you to use the Chicago Manual of Style, nothing will.
slag
Wasn’t it Brooks who blamed torture on liberals because, “If it feels good, do it”? Still amazes me that guy continues to be employed.
fuckwit
Bill Hicks used to lament that all the institutions of traditional society are crumbling… because they’re no longer relevant! Ha ha!
If the institutions are corrupt and malicious then of course we will lose faith in them. Because they are no longer serving a useful purpose. Or worse, they’re actively hurting us, not helping us.
Roger Moore
@jl:
I think that’s totally unfair to Douthat. He obviously wants people to respect the Catholic Church, or at least the Catholic Church as it existed before Vatican II.
SatanicPanic
@Hungry Joe: we’ll all get degrees from Corinthian College! Oh wait
Iowa Old Lady
Remember that story about TX Gov Abbott sending the Guard to monitor US military exercises? Crooks and Liars tells me that the Texas Guard is NOT to be confused with the National Guard. It’s apparently a volunteer force of…well, exactly the people you’d expect.
http://crooksandliars.com/2015/04/ding-ding-ding-we-have-winner
fuckwit
@Turgidson: It’s also selective. There are institutions the wingnuts want to completely dominate our world: specifically churches, corporations, and the police and the military. Those institutions they want to take complete control of life.
The institutions they don’t want are those that give power to the powerless, voice to the voiceless, that even out the playing field, that reduce terror and fear, that give equality and hope and security and comfort. Like, for example, a secular democratic government, public education, public social safety net, etc. Them’s the ones they are working very hard to destroy.
It’s just a power grab.
MomSense
@Roger Moore:
W is the man with the minus touch.
Lavocat
The method to their madness is simple in the extreme:
1) reduce people’s faith in x;
2) paint x as bad/evil/anti-American, etc.;
3) DEFUND x;
4) blame any long-term problems of a gutted x on Democrats; &
5) get re-elected while screaming the mantra of “Big Government is Evil and Incompetent!”
Rinse, lather, repeat.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
Tut tut, let me sound grave for a moment, before returning to my unbearable shallowness.
msdc
No, most of them are delighted that no one trusts scientists and teachers.
Doug r
They also took every mistake that Democrats made of trusting them and totally screwed that crap around as well. Glass-steagall and no child left behind come to mind .
kindness
It isn’t a bug in the deal, it’s a feature.
Tone in DC
I first heard about the APA and the torture regime about two years ago (thank God for Amy Goodman), and could scarcely believe it. I think those guys must have recanted the Hippocratic Oath. Or something like that.
The true nature of Cheney and Dubya’s kakistocracy took years to sink in, in my case. From the Powell speech at the UN to the GWOT to the crash of 2007, the 43rd president is the gift that keeps on perverting everything.
Reverse Midas touch, indeed.
scav
I wonder how many of the military that went though that war are in policing now. But then, ideas, philosophy and mentalities can spread between similar institutions independently of extra equipment and actual trained, indoctrinated, bodies.
JPL
@Iowa Old Lady: What could possibly happen when volunteers carry guns?
hmmm reminds me of something that happened in Tulsa cty.
jl
@Lavocat: You forgot a few steps:
6. Give some buddies dibs on a private contracting scheme to replace government program.
7. Eliminate accountability
8. Profit!
Note that they clever replaced the ‘?’ in the middle step. But the prospect of money for nothing concentrates the mind so wonderfully, doesn’t it?
Snarki, child of Loki
Edited for justiceracy.
Germy Shoemangler
@Tone in DC: And his brother has a good chance of being our next president?
Or at least it would seem when I read the NyTiMeS.
Germy Shoemangler
@Iowa Old Lady: How long before shots are fired? Because of something they heard on the radio, or something a friend posted to facebook?
Sasha
Don’t you mean Sadim Touch
Trollhattan
@Sasha:
Don’t forget, Sadim had those DMWs.
Tone in DC
@Germy Shoemangler:
That paper has fallen almost as far as the Kaplan Post over the last 15 years or so.
Truly disgusting to look back on that descent.
Sad thing is, most people are not willing to go looking for “liberal” news with its well known bias toward reality (of all of the quotes from the Dubya/Cheney administration that turned my stomach, that deluded “we create our own reality” tripe truly lives in infamy).
Gotta check the Nation site, then Counterspin and Between the Lines. Even hearing about the Douthat Brooks and MoDo debacle of a paper has me on edge.
Napoleon
@MomSense:
Thumbs up!
Redshift
@Tone in DC:
They’re psychologists, not psychiatrists, so not MDs, no Hippocratic Oath.
Ms. Redshift used to work in psychology, and says she left because she was tired of dealing with the crazy people (not referring to the clients.)
Yatsuno
@Tone in DC: Psychiatrists don’t take the Hippocratic Oath. At least not the last time I checked. But the APA is also not the credentialing authority, just their trade union.
Redshift
@fuckwit:
Of course. The core of conservatism the world over is a belief that an aristocracy should rule.
Yatsuno
@Redshift: And I have no edit function. I used the wrong profession there. Sorry.
Tone in DC
@Redshift:
Yikes.
That situation is worse than I thought. What even vaguely medical professional of any stripe or predilection cannot subscribe to “first, do no harm”?
Josie
@Iowa Old Lady: I looked it up this morning since I live in Texas and have never heard of the Texas Guard. There is the National Guard, the Air National Guard and the Texas Guard. One of these is not like the other two and has no affiliation with the military. They sound very sketchy to me, but are probably quite loyal to the good guv. The conspiracy theory was supposedly started by a radio talk show guy in Dallas. Sometimes I wish we could just cut off East Texas and everything north of Dallas and give them to Louisiana and Oklahoma. Then Texas would start to look like a state capable of rational thought.
ETA: I went to elementary school with a boy named Billy Bob. Seriously.
Tone in DC
@Yatsuno:
Sad all around.
I’ll say it for all of us… FYWP!!
Redshift
@Tone in DC: I expect they have it in some sense, it’s just not front and center like it supposedly is for doctors. Which I can’t entirely fault them for; there are plenty of professions that effectively follow that principle without swearing an oath about it.
Redshift
The anthropology profession had a big round of soul-searching after members were involved in intelligence work under the guise of research during the Vietnam War, resulting in important additions to their code of ethics. After I heard about this business with the APA a few years ago, I expected something similar. I haven’t heard that it’s happened, but I don’t really pay much attention to the profession, so I could have missed it, or it could be in progress. If it’s not, that’s even more damning for the profession.
rp
The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.
RandomMonster
Am I the only one who remembers reading about the A.P.A.’s complicity in the torture program way back when the invasion was still fresh and we were occupying the country?!
I’m not imagining that, right?
Cervantes
Well. As noted observer Perry Como used to say, we get letters:
Ripley
The APA Ethical Code does include a foundational provision analogous to ‘do no harm,’ as well as varied specific codes that reinforce (and to a lesser extent, provide guidance toward) avoiding harm to clients, students, the general public, etc.
One thing to keep in mind is that ethical codes – of any profession – are largely aspirational and depend on self-enforcement. State licensing boards are more or less the legal enforcers of professional behavior, although they rely on consumers filing complaints against professionals in order to enforce standards.
The APA has been a conservative old-boy network for a lot of years, and the ugly creep of hyper-capitalism has only made it worse. They deserve the bad press. I dropped membership years ago.
chopper
@Cervantes:
Nadine was one of the better presidents the APA has had. she generally doesn’t fuck around, a quality you detect within 30 seconds of meeting her.
RandomMonster
I mean, maybe this recent APA internal review sheds some new light, but this story has been around since at least 2007: http://www.projectcensored.org/10-apa-complicit-in-cia-torture/
Patrick
It really is sickening that our tax money was not only used to fund torture. But it was also similar torture that we prosecuted Japanese soldiers for in WWII. Something is obviously wrong here.
gene108
I know there are some crazy shrewd and ruthless people in conservative ranks, like how they immediately realized how the Citizen’s United decision could be used to take over state and local governments, but I think part of the reason the destroy government brand of conservatism caught on was them getting a bit lucky.
As LBJ’s Great Society programs started to get going crime rates shot up, inflation was on the rise, the economic boom of the 1950’s and 1960’s seemed like a distant memory, by 1980, and whole bunch of causation-correlation crackpot theories could be thrown around and people were ready to believe it.
And now two generations of Americans have been raised with the belief that “government is the problem”, and take it as a matter of faith that the only thing government should do is cut taxes and deregulate, no matter what the outcome actually is.
Tone in DC
Hey EF… I did say MEDICAL profession.
Cervantes
@chopper:
Well, that cuts both ways.
Has she responded to the new evidence? E. g., the note the CIA sent to an APA official explaining that Mitchell and Jessen “are doing special things to special people in special places.”
Tenar Darell
@trollhattan: The A.M.A. hasn’t yanked the licenses of doctors who participated in torture based on this article from 2013.
chopper
@Cervantes:
given that she’s no longer APA president (term is one year, she was president for 2014) I figure she’d let the new guy speak for the organization regarding new information.
JustRuss
Just watched Stewart interview Judith Miller regarding her pre-Iraq reporting. God that was painful.
WereBear
Yes. It just goes to show that no matter how STUPID the idea — in this case, civilization itself was a wrong turn, we’d all rather live in Thunderdome — some people can be convinced to embrace it with all their might.
trollhattan
@JustRuss:
I couldn’t finish it. If she preened for the camera one more time my shoe was going to perforate the teevee. Ugh.
Peale
It’s bad. But the right has been at war with the APA since, IDK, they stopped helping put the gays away. I’m not certain what the APA organization was thinking. Is torture the kind of thing they recommend that their patients go through?
trollhattan
@Peale:
You’d think the continued existence of “American Idol” would be sufficient.
Cervantes
@chopper:
Naturally — especially given that letter she had published in the New York Times. (“The two psychologists identified in the Senate committee report are not members of the American Psychological Association and are therefore beyond the range of our ethics enforcement program.”)
Eljai
@JustRuss: I wasn’t going to watch because I wasn’t sure I was up to it. But I watched anyway. And it confirmed what I’ve always thought: Judith Miller is full of sh*t.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Damn, none of you fuckers can read, apparently. It’s been said three times already in the thread:
Oh, but the NY Times said it so it must be true. Christ.
Cervantes
@Eljai:
Perhaps, but she got what she wanted regardless.
Cervantes
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
You seem over-excited.
Try reading the article linked in the original post, then get back to us. (Thanks.)
Thoughtcrime
JEB® has just secured Andrew Sullivan’s vote: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/jeb-bush-charles-murray-the-bell-curve
D58826
OT but really have to wonder about the makeup of our ‘thin blue line’ In Atlanta today a man was shot after he fired at police officers. Now usually there is nothing news worthy about that. In this case he shot at the officers from the back seat of the police car.after he was arrested. mind boggling
Cervantes
@Thoughtcrime:
With bated breath we wait.
Thoughtcrime
@Cervantes:
All of them, Cervantie!
Turgidson
@fuckwit:
True enough. I’d only say that they only want corporations, churches, etc. to dominate to the extent that they are the ones controlling or profiting from that control. And most of the elite billionaire GOP fat cats could take or leave the church, seeing it more as a useful tool for mobilizing voters to vote for something other than their economic well-being.
Keith G
I am not sure that I have anymore shits left to give on this and related topics.
We. Made. Our. Choice.
2009 would have been a splendid time to initiate a “truth commission” on the lies, misuse of power, incalculable fiduciary misconduct, and war crimes. But no, Fuckers…we moved on.
So like it or not, we are complicit after the fact. Well, some here were complicit during the fact.
I get (but don’t necessarily agree with) the political calculations involved. The Big Guy, and others, apparently thought it would take too much energy away from too many other initiatives. Many here agreed.
The thing is, sometimes there can be a high cost to doing the morally correct thing and the truly important things might come at a very high cost. That is why few moral cowards ever suffer from loneliness. So yeah, you can squawk about the terrible things that some of these cats did, but we (societal) are the ones who gave them a pass. Thus in light of that, I am not sure that I have anymore shits left to give on this and related topics.
shell
The existence of Dick Cheney is the only reason why I hope there’s an afterlife and final judgement. He sure as hell isn’t gonna get it here.
Cervantes
@shell:
Well, maybe.
The article is from Foreign Policy.
GxB
I ran across links to the BBC documentary “The Power of Nightmares” from about a decade back. Very interesting. It has an excellent summary and history of the rise of the far right neo-cons, and draws parallels to the rise of Islamist fundamentalism. Peas in a pod as it turns out. Highly recommended if you got a couple hours and are on blood pressure meds, anti-depressants and/or benz-o’s (is that going to get around moderation??)
dr. bloor
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Members or not, the APA sat around with their thumbs up their collective ass when all this was first breaking, what, ten years ago? I resigned my membership when they finally came up with some mealy-mouthed tightrope-walking letter trying not to piss off the hand that funds so many of their grants (government in general, military in particular).
They’re a guild, and not a very good one at that. Like any guild, they’re easily corruptible when someone passes Benjamins under their noses.
sweetgreensnowpea
i am starving on a diet of red herrings.
dmbeaster
This is the odious GOP that has as a talking point that there has been an alleged decline in morals by liberalism that has weakened America. Steal the rhetoric but provide as examples all of this horrible GOP policy starting with torture, etc.
It drives righties crazy. Use torture as an example, and ask them if it is also OK to use it against drug dealers accused of selling drugs to children.
Ripley
@dr. bloor: Yup.
A lot of dark shit came out about Martin Seligman around 5 years ago, largely around the APA’s “we’re cool with that” response. Very disappointing.