All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
Uh, all right, but now we go to, uh, Robert Palito, Palito.
I'm not sure yet.
Um, he is an associate professor of political science at Seton Hall university, a former trial attorney and a contributor to foreign policy in focus.
He's the editor of torture and state violence in the United States and has an article co-written with his wife, Laura Melendez, Palito or Palito.
I don't know yet.
Uh, today it's a rerunning from foreign policy and focus at anti-war.com.
Welcome to the show.
How are you doing Robert?
Very well.
Thanks.
And, uh, how do you say your last name?
I'm sorry.
Palito.
Palito.
Okay.
I wasn't sure if the two T's meant that I had to shorten the eye or exactly how that goes, but I'm sure you've run into that before.
Yes.
Right.
Okay, great.
Uh, psychologists and torture then, and now it's a tragedy and farce story.
You say?
Yes.
And so which is the tragedy and which is the farce?
Well, I mean, the tragedy is that that happened in the first place.
And, um, Alfred McCoy, the historian from university of Wisconsin has, uh, detailed the history from the cold war when the CIA was sort of looking for researchers who would help them, um, explore mind control, they thought that the Soviets were making advances in mind control, which helped them to, uh, brainwash, um, prisoners.
And, uh, the CIA was hoping that we could catch up and unfortunately there were psychologists who were willing to participate in various forms of experiments, uh, funded by the CIA.
And ultimately much of this research found its way into, um, counter interrogation protocols, uh, that the United States was using.
So that was what happened, um, 60 years ago.
And it was tragic that it happened in the first place, but what we were struck by is how this history is sort of coming back to us now in the post 9 11 world.
Well, yeah, it's interesting how, uh, even just right here in the first paragraph, you guys have it straight that they went with all their MK ultra mind control experiments, but these, they kind of all bled over pretty quickly, it looks like into just plain old interrogation.
And especially if you're a Latin American colonel and you're a torturing a Latin American victim, this is the kind of stuff that you do to just your regular captives on a regular basis, I guess, same for the Vietnamese.
Right.
Well, the problem is that the, that the, um, some of the research had to do with how is it that people would confess the things that were false?
Um, uh, Albert Biederman studied some captives, uh, uh, who had been interrogated by the Chinese military, uh, in, in, in the Korean war.
And, uh, said that it was remarkable how people would confess all sorts of outlandish things.
So Biederman was interested in the process by which people end up saying things, saying anything that isn't true, but tragically, these methods were studied and then applied, uh, to at least, um, uh, theoretically get useful information.
So it was sort of, uh, misguided from the start and then things just went from bad to worse.
And yeah, if anybody wants their heart broken, please read a question of torture by Alfred McCoy.
Certainly, uh, it's, it's, it's enlightening in all the worst ways, but there you go.
So, um, and now the farce, I mean, in, in this case, George Bush's torture regime, I guess, uh, wasn't as cruel maybe as the one in Vietnam, but, uh, you know, people freezing to death and being beaten to death at the salt pit outside of Kabul.
That's no joke.
No, it isn't.
I mean, and we frankly will never know all of the extremes to which some of the torture went.
And of course there are things that were done, um, in our interrogations, which I think as a matter of law constitute torture, like waterboarding.
There are also things that were done when people were rendered, uh, like my hair or are, uh, to another country, uh, that didn't observe at least the legal norms, uh, prohibiting torture.
And so, uh, those, uh, descriptions of those tactics are, are also, as you said, heartbreaking and horrifying, almost, almost impossible to read.
So there were things that were done that were every bit as horrible physically in terms of, of, of mutilation and, and, and horrible pain as anything you could find anywhere else.
And many times this was done by, um, by, by, by surrogates.
In other words, people to whom we rendered subjects to be interrogated and tortured.
And now, so it sure does seem strange that psychologists who I guess, you know, aren't doctors, uh, are they not bound to stay out of things like, you know, tying somebody up and beating them up?
It seems like they're, you know, pseudo doctors, you know, there's like a chiropractor still bound from doing harm, isn't he?
Yes.
I mean, that's one of the points that we raised in the article is that there are all kinds of ethical constraints on psychologists.
One of them is to do no harm.
Um, another is to respect confidentiality, uh, of, of, uh, patient information.
Um, another is, um, uh, not, uh, is to consider a client's interests rather than other interests, um, and utilizing, uh, uh, psychological techniques.
And unfortunately, um, many of these, uh, constraints were violated.
Uh, particularly there's been a lot in the news, the New York Times has covered this, Vanity Fair, um, uh, other journalists about Mitchell and Jeff and associates.
These guys were two, uh, psychologists who really were not, um, specialists in, um, anything related to, uh, coercive interrogation or resistance protocols.
I think one of them studied family therapy, uh, but they saw an opportunity after nine 11, uh, to get involved in advising the government on how to do effective interrogations.
And, uh, now there have been allegations that, um, that this involved ethical violations.
And, uh, there have been proceedings to see whether, um, they're, they should lose their licenses.
Unfortunately to date, this hasn't happened.
And one of the things that we pointed out is that, uh, psychologists lose their license for all sorts of things, including billing, uh, irregularities, and here is something far more severe and, and to date, uh, no one has suffered that consequence.
Well, uh, you know, I don't want to be too vague and, you know, fudge it too far, but it seems like there's some responsibility there on the rest of them, what is their interest?
They're trying to protect so bad that they would rather not clean their own house of torturers.
Well, yeah, here's the thing.
I mean, the American psychological association is a, is a professional association.
It's similar to for lawyers, the American bar association.
So the, the ABA makes recommendations.
Um, the ABA often gets involved in betting, uh, candidates for judicial office, um, but they ultimately can't enforce a state licensing standards.
That's up to the state.
So for example, if a lawyer is disbarred, that's usually a result of the state bar in which they're licensed, um, imposing that disciplinary sanction.
So what the APA has done is it's contacted, um, some of the, uh, licensing boards in states or at least one of them and urge that should these allegations prove to be true.
And of course the, the, the APA doesn't have the firsthand knowledge of the evidence, but should this evidence prove to be true, then anyone who engaged in such tactics should lose their license.
So, I mean, in our view, this is But there is no investigation though, to settle this question, right?
No, there hasn't been.
And in fact, um, uh, Steven, um, uh, Reisner from a, uh, anti-torture human rights group was also a psychologist has actually filed suit to compel a licensing board to, uh, do an investigation.
And so far that suit has, um, has not been successful.
I mean, there's, there's an appeal pending now.
So no, the, the, and, and, and to the extent that licensing boards have investigated, we, we, we don't know because they haven't, uh, reported back to the public about it.
I mean, if you look, for example, at the state of Texas, um, uh, board of, of licensing first psychologist, they will list members who have lost their license and the reasons why they lost their licenses, but they, uh, you cannot tell what is ongoing.
Um, and that's fairly normal with a lot of different investigations, internal affairs for the police or, or, or, or disciplinary, uh, actions against lawyers.
Right.
Okay.
Well, uh, I got more questions here.
We are at the break.
Music's playing.
We got to go.
We'll be right back on the other side with Robert Palito.
Uh, he writes for foreign policy in focus and, uh, we're rerunning a piece.
He has with his wife here at anti-war.com today.
It was originally a foreign policy in focus, uh, Laura Melendez, Palito and Robert Palito psychologists and torture then.
And now we'll be right back.
All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton and I'm talking with Robert Palito.
He and his wife have a piece at anti-war.com today.
It was originally at foreign policy and focus that's fpif.org.
It's called psychologists and torture then and now.
And if I page up, I actually have a bio here that I think I skipped earlier.
Uh, Mr.
Palito is an associate professor of political science at Seton hall university, a former trial attorney and a contributor to foreign policy and focus, no, I did say that.
Didn't I see editor of torture and state violence in the United States, lots and lots of that.
Okay.
So now, uh, when the, uh, commercial break, so rudely interrupted us, I believe I was about to ask you, it, it sounds something to me like the, um, American psychological association is passing the buck here.
And they're saying that, uh, well, they have far be it from them.
They would love to do something, but it's up to the States to do anything at all.
The state boards and however the law is in each of the States to, uh, take these people's licenses away or find them or punish them or publicly humiliate them this way or that.
And yet it seems to me like they have all kinds of, uh, they must have all kinds of power to at least kick them out, um, make them public disgraces.
Uh, everybody come together and denounce them, uh, you know, like they're witches or whatever.
If, if some of them can participate in torturing people, then surely the rest of them can come together to blacklist those torturers.
Well, yeah, I mean, I guess I don't entirely agree because, uh, the same way that the APA has, uh, talked about racial bias and the death penalty or has opposed, um, extraordinary rendition, the APA can play a role by publicly condemning, um, what, um, but it's members or members of the profession have done, and I think that the, you know, the, the recent, the 2010 letter, uh, from the APA, um, does that.
And it's a welcome step.
The problem is that up until then, the APA was sort of equivocal on the question of exactly what psychologists ought to be able to do.
And I think part of the reason is because of the psychologists who were involved in producing the research in the first place.
It was kind of like a, um, a reluctant reluctance to criticize one's own.
Um, so there's a limit to what they can do because of the nature of the organization, just like the, there's a limit to what the APA can do.
Nonetheless, when they do come out with a report and I'm thinking particularly of the ABA's joint report with a human rights group on, um, presidential signing statements on, uh, another one on, um, extraordinary rendition, uh, these are important statements and they contribute to the discourse, but there is a difference between, um, an organization that doesn't have enforcement powers and, and a part of the state that does.
Right.
Yeah.
I guess I don't really know the ins and outs of like, say the American medical association or whatever.
It just seems like, you know, people all the time say I'm calling the better business bureau on you.
There's all kinds of, of private, um, comeuppance that can, you know, still be dealt out.
And it sounds like, uh, you know, as little as I know about it, it sounds like they would prefer to pass the buck and pretend like this isn't that far outside of the norm or whatever.
And maybe it's gone unsaid really, uh, in, in much detail, what exactly these psychologists did.
They weren't the ones dunking anybody under the water or slamming them against the wall, right?
What were they doing?
Well, if you, if you look at the New York times reporting on this issue, Scott Shane did a number of stories back in 2009 and Shane reports that in fact, the Mitchell and Jessen who ran this consulting business, uh, dealing with, uh, government interrogations, uh, actually were present at some of the interrogation sites.
This is what Shane reports, um, and others have reported this as well.
So it does go beyond simply, uh, publishing a paper saying, here's how to get somebody to talk, um, which, which raises its own issues.
But, uh, but, but, but this is significantly beyond that.
The allegations are that two of the psychologists in particular were actually there and, and, and at one point spoke to, uh, uh, the subject.
And now you referred earlier to, uh, this guy, Bitterman, who I guess helped to advance a lot of this stuff, uh, back in the first place and, uh, about, you know, how to make someone talk, how to get them to lie or say anything or how to get them to say something that you can actually rely on.
Um, it sure seems like if you look at cases like, uh, Binyam Mohamed who implicated Padilla or, uh, Sheikha Libby, who implicated Saddam Hussein in hijacking techniques and teaching Al Qaeda about chemical weapons and stuff that these people were deliberately tortured in order to get them to make up stories.
And I wonder whether, you know, in all these years of, of torture practice, does it seem as though they actually did figure out how to do this, right?
How to torture you into telling the truth versus how to torture you into telling a lie?
Well, I, you know, my, my view is that there isn't a science of torture.
I think that, you know, uh, we, we often believe, um, in this day and age, and particularly in the United States, that technology, um, uh, scientific, uh, progress can solve problems completely.
And the question of, of finding the truth isn't always something that's susceptible to, um, uh, scientific precision.
In other words, if a person is being questioned and the person is telling you, I didn't plant the bomb, you can never really know whether they're telling the truth or not.
And so this is one of the reasons why I'm categorically opposed to using torture in any situation, because the torturer never knows whether the person is telling the truth.
I mean, suppose I'm picked up by government security forces and they say, we know you planted the bomb, tell us where it is.
And I say, I don't, I don't know because I didn't do it.
Well, I can say that until I die, literally, uh, and be truthful.
And, and the interrogator says, I know you're not telling the truth.
They, they never know that I'm not telling the truth.
I mean, uh, simply through, um, uh, through, through, through trying to reach it through any kind of persuasive technique.
So that's one of the problems is that you can never be sure that, uh, that, that you, that you have the correct information and you're going to be able to use it to produce a confession or to produce useful information.
The other thing is of course, that interrogators say that typically any kind of interrogation, uh, yields small bits of information.
And so if, if, if interrogation is done, it's not going to yield the entire picture from one person.
What it will do is it will lead, yield a clue from one place, which can be combined with a clue from another place to eventually build a bigger picture.
And this is true, whether we're talking about coercive or non-coercive interrogation.
So the problem with, with, with using coercive interrogation, uh, in this, um, from this view is that you have to torture many people to get information.
So it's no longer a question of torturing the one bad guy, so to speak, to save millions of people.
But you have to be willing to do that to a larger number of people.
And then of course, the other issue is the practical issue that some interrogation experts have said the best way to obtain information that's useful is through rapport building.
In other words, rather than threats, rather than pain, um, trying to, uh, to, to, to engage in a dialogue with an interrogation subject.
So this doesn't involve threats.
It doesn't involve pain.
It doesn't involve fear, but you can be more confident in what you're getting because you've established this rapport with the subject.
Um, one good example to look at to see, um, how this approach is explained by someone who actually does it is that Senate testimony that Ali Stefan gave back in 2009, where he talked about his own experience with, uh, with, with counterterrorism and interrogation and how he was opposed to using coercive interrogation of any kind.
Number one, because it's wrong.
And number two, because it doesn't work.
Right.
Well, um, yeah, I think, you know, anybody who ever watched the Sam Jackson movie in the 1990s or something knows that that's the way you negotiate with somebody is, uh, you know, pretend to be their friend as best you can as the cop out in the parking lot on the phone or whatever, that's how you do it.
In fact, they did in the 1990s when bin Laden was still in Sudan, they offered his chief financial guy that, uh, bring your wife to America.
We'll do that important surgery that she needs.
And he gave the CIA all kinds of stuff, uh, because they gave him the carrot rather than the stick.
But that sort of goes back to the line.
You don't have to be that kind of, uh, that fancy in copying anything from North Koreans, a little red torture manual or anything else, it's pretty easy to see that if you just bend some guy's fingers backwards and say, tell us what you know about Saddam Hussein and chemical weapons and hijacking, that at some point he's going to take the hint that he better come up with something about Saddam Hussein and hijacking.
It's not that hard.
You know, when Dick Cheney sent you to go and get me someone who will say this, you know, 11, five hours.
Right.
It's really misguided.
And I mean, the, the absurd, one of the many absurdities of this whole story is that, um, Albert, Albert Biederman back in the fifties came up with a chart that he published in a journal article, um, about how coercion happens.
And that chart showed up verbatim as Scott Shane has reported in the New York times, um, showed up verbatim in, uh, interrogation protocols, um, uh, post nine 11 at Guantanamo.
So, uh, Biederman was talking about something entirely different.
As Senator Levin put it in a Senate hearing.
Of course, we want information from our enemies.
We don't want false information that doesn't do us any good.
And yet nobody seemed to bother to think about that distinction.
Um, the other, uh, really strange thing about Biederman's chart is that it was used, um, it has been used over the years by people who are trying to recover, um, uh, someone who joined a cult.
People who are trying to, uh, to work with domestic violence victims.
And now it's been sort of a reverse engineer, as people have studied have said, uh, to be used to actually interrogate people.
All right.
We got to leave it there.
Thanks very much for your time on the show today, everybody.
That's Robert Pulido.
His article is at foreign policy in focus and at antiwar.com.
It's a co-written with his wife, Laura Melendez Pulido.
And, um, his book is, uh, that he edited torture and state violence in the United States.
Thanks very much again.
Thank you.
