"On the 'ethics' of complicity in torture" by J.B.Gerald

2.8.15

on-the-ethics-of-complicity-in torture: [nightslantern.ca] APA members and Board have encouraged participation in military interrogation events (ie. torture sessions), not as referees (to draw the line between 'acceptable' practice and what is internationally recognized as the crime of torture) but as cover to permit the crime: if the attending psychologist says the torture won't have lasting psychological effects the torture can be continued without the interrogator risking subsequent prosecution.

This APA mechanism of protecting war crimes was knowingly entered into by the APA leadership, and the Hoffman report among others singles out Dr. Stephen Benke as the mastermind of the arrangement with DOD: "The APA official who led this behind-the-scenes coordination with the DOD officials was the Ethics Director, Stephen Behnke..." (Hoffman report, p. 12).

Dr. Benke headed the American Psychological Association Ethics division from 2000 to 2015. The exposure of his crime was fought for with the integrity of more humane psychologists among others, but ignored by the establishment's academic bastions of PhD ethicists.

While English Oxford dictionaries define "ethics" as the moral principles governing one's behaviour, the American Merriam Webster shifts the meaning to ideas of good and bad governing one's behaviour. Academics break down the concept of ethics into categories as if to shield their eyes from the obvious. Ethics means decency. It's like morals without a partisan flag. The push to isolate ethics in the world of ideas, suits military expansion, criminal foreign policies and war crimes. Beyond decency, ethics is a guide to long term survival. Because it's about survival ethics is always tied into life. In Dr. Albert Schweitzer's work ethics becomes interwoven with reverence for life. War has little to do with ethics. The Rabbis' "Ethics of the Fathers" suggests: "Love work; hate the holding of public office; and do not be intimate with the ruling authorities" (Chpt. 1, 10).