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Michael Gelles condescends to APA critics

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While I respect Dr. Gelles' honorable act of reporting abuses to his superior, I must say that his inability to see, or his unwillingness to acknowledge, these fundamental moral distinctions between the rule of law, however flawed in practice, and the despotism characterizing America's detention system reduces his moral stature in my eyes. I agree with Dr. Gelles that "torture, cruelty and abuse have no role in interrogations." In a system, such as the American detention system, which is built upon cruelty and abuse, if not outright torture, as Amnesty International pointed out yet again just today(Cruel and Inhuman: Conditions of isolation for detainees at Guantánamo Bay), there is no such thing as an interrogation devoid of "torture, cruelty and abuse." That this fact casts a dark shadow upon our government and upon our people makes it no less true. Thus, by Dr. Gelles' own statements, psychologists have no role in interrogations in America's lawless detention system.

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Stephen Soldz is psychoanalyst, psychologist, public health researcher, and faculty member at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis. He is co-founder of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology and is President of Psychologists for Social Responsibility. He was a psychological consultant on two of (more...)
 
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