Today's Stories

May 18, 2009

Dave Lindorff
The US is Using White Phosporous in Afghanistan

Abdul Malik Mujahid
Thirty Years of Tragedy in Afghanistan

Ben Rosenfeld
Police Violence: How Many Kicks to the Head Does It Take?

Patrick Cockburn
These Killings Will Only Strengthen the Taliban

May 15-17, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
King of the Hate Business

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Case of the Missing H-Bomb

David Rosen
Sexual Torture: What is Acknowledged and What Remains Unknown

Mike Whitney
From My Lai to Bala Baluk: Obama Picks Up Where Bush Left Off

Bruce Page
A Real History of Rupert Murdoch

Jeremy Scahill
The Black Shirts of Guantánamo

Fred Gardner
Tortured Reasoning: Judge Bybee Rules Against Brian Epis

Tom Barry
Fighting the Drug War at Homeland Security

Mats Svensson
On the Beach in Tel Aviv

Ramzy Baroud
The Drones Are Coming

Mark Engler
Science Fiction From Below

Mark Weisbrot
Stealth Move by IMF to Get $100 Billion Without Congressional Debate

Farzana Versey
Of Scapegoats and Separatists

Ron Jacobs
It's Up to You to Save Troy Davis

Hannah Wolfe
What to Tell the Children

Cal Winslow
Fresno, the New Ground Zero in the Battle Between the SEIU and NUHW

David Macaray
Labor Needs a Southern Strategy

Christopher Brauchli
Involuntary Baptism

Mark Seth Lender
The Lion Tamer's Story

Robert Fantina
Lapel Pins, Arugula and Mustard

David Ker Thomson
Last Man Walking

Stephen Martin
Lipstick Nightmare for Spin Merchant

Charles R. Larson
Double Exile

Chase Madar
"Angels & Demons" and the Extraordinary Power of Imaginary Heretics

Kim Nicolini
Vaginas From Outer Space! Boldly Sitting Through Star Trek

David Yearsley
Handel's Ghost

Lorenzo Wolff
Killer Virtues

Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Jordan and Moser

Website of the Weekend
Catch F-22

May 14, 2009

Michael Hudson
Where Russia Went Wrong

Andy Worthington
The Poisoned Mosaic: Judge Condemns Guantánamo Evidence

Paul Craig Roberts
The Impotent President

Jonathan Cook
The Pope's Pilgrimage: Legitimizing Netanyahu?

Ray McGovern
See No Evil: Ugly Questions for General Myers

Lance Selfa
The Limits of Liberalism

David Green
The Deportation of Demjanjuk

Dave Lindorff
Obama Channels Cheney

Frida Berrigan
Nuclear Options

Sue Udry
The Bybee Question

Website of the Day
Our Bombs: Tracking US Air Strikes

May 13, 2009

Brian M. Downing
The Road Out of Iraq

Gareth Porter
Gen. McChrystal and Afghanistan

Robert Sandels
Obama and Latin America: No Light, All Tunnel

Ricardo Alarcón
Cuba: Measure of a Revolution

Eric Walberg
NATO in Georgia: Fun and Games

Dave Lindorff
The Sinking of GM: When Captains of Industry Don't Go Down with the Ship

Deepak Tripathi
A Culture of Abuse

William S. Lind
Back to the Balkans: Hillary and the Sleeping Dragon

Kevin Zeese
A Populist Health Care Rebellion

Franklin Lamb
Lebanon: From Perdition to Redemption?

Website of the Day
Beth McIntosh: The Wild Ride

May 12, 2009

Gary Leupp
The Bomb Iran Faction

Richard Neville
The AfPak Blues: Corpses of the Kids by the Truckload

Wajahat Ali
Obama Chooses a Reliable Dictatorship

Dean Baker
The Banker Boys Are Alright! Time to End the Bailouts

Franklin Lamb
What Palestinian Refugees Need From Lebanon's Elections

Norman Solomon
A Progressive Challenge to Jane Harman

Paul Craig Roberts
Beware the Hate Crimes Bill

Lisa M. Hamilton
Let's Grow a New Crop of Farmers

Bob Fitrakis /
Harvey Wasserman:
Why Isn't Obama Turning to Credit Unions?

David Macaray
Wading Through the Grassroots

Website of the Day
Electronic Police States

May 11, 2009

Andrea Peacock
No Justice for Libby

Michael Hudson
Gordon Brown Spills the Beans on the IMF

Patrick Cockburn
Who Killed 120 Civilians?

Ralph Nader
The Single-Payer Taboo

John Kelly
Pseudoscience and Wrongful Convictions in the War on Drugs

Saul Landau
Cuba's Biggest "Crime"

Dave Lindorff
Blaming the Dead Victims

David Michael Green
Get Obama

Anthony Papa
Gov. David Paterson Does the Right Thing

Paul Krassner
Jon Stewart and Truman, the War Criminal

Website of the Day
Generational Homelessness

May 8-10, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Dead Souls

Jeffrey St. Clair
Echoes of Amchitka: 40 Years After America's Biggest Nuclear Blast, the Damage Continues

Paul Wolf
Obama's Axis of Obedience

Steve Niva
Iraq: The Return of the Suicide Bombers

Neve Gordon
Jailed for Caring

Mike Whitney
Has Bernanke Pulled the Economy Back From the Brink?

Warren Hinckle
DiFi vs. Marilyn Chambers

Serge Halimi
In Praise of Revolutions

Gareth Porter
The Pakistan Conundrum

Sharon Smith
Something Stinks at Whole Foods

Andy Worthington
Obama's New Gitmo Policy: Back to the Bush Era?

Mark Weisbrot
Hillary and Latin America

Rosa Miriam Elizalde Cyber Command and Cyber Dissident: More of the Same?

David Macaray
Recessions and Labor Unions

Missy Beattie
The Real Housewives of War

Ron Jacobs
Mothers and War

Diane Farsetta
About Face on Pentagon Pundits?

Ramzy Baroud
War Without Context

Phelie Maguire
Living Next to Settlers

Robert Fantina
Party of Rush

Kevin Zeese
A Break From the Past in the Drug War?

Margaret Flowers, MD
The Baucus 8: Why We Risked Arrest for Single-Payer

Dave Lindorff
The Joke's on Us

Richard Rhames
Revenge of the Tundra

Ben Sonnenberg
Let the Right One In: A Vampire Visits a Welfare State

Kim Nicolini
Sin Nombre: Giving Faces to People Who Don't Have Names

Stephen Martin
The Riotous Action of the Complete Banker

Charles R. Larson
The Commencement Address You'll Never Hear

David Yearsley
Jean Ferrard, Organist Extraordinary

Lorenzo Wolff
Death Cab for Cutie: Surprisingly Familiar

Poets' Basement
G.S. Heiligschreib and David Farrelly

Website of the Weekend
Zombie Bank

May 7, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
Criminalizing Criticism of Israel

Chris Floyd
A Full-Court Press for Pakistan War

Andy Worthington
Mixed Messages on Torture

Alan Farago
No Place Like Home: a Stress Test for Land Use, Not Just Banks

Ray McGovern
Deux ex Machina on Torture?

Dave Lindorff
Stain Removal: Impeaching the Torture Judge

Eric Toussaint /
Damien Millet
Why is There Rampant Famine in the 21st Century?

Ana M. Malinow, MD
Why We Need a Single-Payer Health Care System

Jeff Armstrong
Freeing Leonard Peltier: What Would Warren Harding Do?

Norman Solomon
A Green New Deal

Website of the Day
The End of Lake Mead?

May 6, 2009

Doug Peacock
The Fate of the Yellowstone Grizzly

Patrick Cockburn
Afghans to Obama: Get Out, Take Karzai With You

Richard Neville
The Torturer's Apprentice

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
To Power a Nation: Nuclear Bombs or Sunshine?

Winslow T. Wheeler
Of Pork and Baloney: Obama's Defense Budget

Deepak Tripathi
Pakistan in Crisis

Stephen Soldz
A "Natural Reaction": APA Ethics Policy-Maker Endorses Torture

Reuven Kaminer
Nice is Not Enough: Obama vs. Netanyahu and Lieberman

David Macaray
The Chrysler-UAW Deal

Kevin Zeese
Why We Were Arrested at the Senate Finance Committee Hearings

Marjorie Cohn
Stanford Antiwar Alums Call for War Crimes Investigation of Condoleezza Rice

Coalition for an Ethical Psychology
Investigate Psychologist and Health Provider Complicity in Torture

Website of the Day
Who's Behind the Financial Meltdown?

May 5, 2009

William Blum
Torture and Mr. Obama

Uri Avnery
Netanyahu's Plan

Steven Higgs
Autism and Toxic Pollution

Dean Baker
Why Economists Should Learn Arithmetic

Daniel Wolff
The Education of Rachel Carson

Sibel Edmonds
The Broken Congress

Carole King Klein
A New Chance to Save the Northern Rockies

Fidel Castro
Giving One's All

Belén Fernández
Oil and Aguardiente in the Ecuadoran Elections

Dan Bacher
Schwarzenegger's Big Lie About Fish vs. Jobs

Website of the Day
"I Married Isis on the Fifth Day of May"

May 4, 2009

James G. Abourezk
The AIPAC Spy Case

Jeff Leys
Obama's War Budget

Patrick Cockburn
Afghan Ayatollahs Press Marital Rape Law

Andy Worthington
A Start on Guantánamo, But Not Enough

Jaime Avilés
Mexico's Plague-Bringers

David Swanson
An Even Worse Bybee Memo

Paul Craig Roberts
Working with Jack Kemp

P. Sainath
Celeb Crusades and the Death of Politics

Eugenia Tsao
Canada's Obama and the Cult of the Prof

Benjamin Dangl
Protest and Rubber Bullets in Paraquay

Sami Al-Arian
Mourning William Moffitt

Website of the Day
"Soldiers Are Cutting Us Down": Kent State, May 4, 1970

May 1 - 3, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Game-Changers: Specter Jumps, Souter Quits

Gary Leupp
Dropping the AIPAC Spying Case

Peter Linebaugh
The Key to the Bastille

Jeffrey St. Clair /
Joshua Frank:
Half Life of a Toxic War: Iraq's Wrecked Environment

C. G. Estabrook
Minion of the Long War

Patrick Cockburn
Kabul's New Elite

Mike Whitney
Economy on the Ropes

Pierre Sprey /
Winslow Wheeler
What "Sweeping Overhaul" of the Pentagon?

Andy Worthington
Al-Marri's Plea Deal: Dictatorial Powers Unchallenged

Mairead Maguire
Stand Up to Israeli Apartheid: a Letter to Obama From a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

Nadia Hijab
The Israel Boycott is Biting

Diane Farsetta
Life, Death and Water Policy

Michael Calderón-Zaks
The Déjà Vu Flu: Why Much of the Discussion About Swine Flu is Racist

Richard Rhames
When Piggies Come Home to Roost: Swine Flu and the Industrial Meat Gulags

Russell Mokhiber
Inside the Beltway Baucus

Ramzy Baroud
Clinton's Unpromising Start

Rannie Amiri
Understanding Lebanon's June Elections

Deb Reich
No Talking, Dammit!

Steven Higgs
Indiana Criminalizes Dissent: Roadblocks on the NAFTA Highway

Brian Cloughley
Malice in Blunderland

David Michael Green
The Party's Over

Farzana Versey
Sex, Swat and Susan Boyle

Jim Goodman
Think Before You Eat: Agriculture and the Environment

Carl Finamore
New Prescription for a Healthy Union Movement

Christopher Brauchli
The Sounds of Silence: the Texas Option

Susie Day
The Real Cause of Unemployment: Employees!

David Yearsley
Nuts Over Beethoven

Lorenzo Wolff
Three Minutes of Perfection

Peter Stone Brown
Dancing with Dylan

Poets' Basement Dominguez, Orloski and Springate

Website of the Weekend
May Day Europe

April 30, 2009

Ellen Cantarow
Obama and "Two States": Seamless Continuity From Bush Time

Dana L. Cloud
The McCarthyism That Horowitz Built

Paul W. Lovinger /
Jeannette Hassberg
A Nation of Laws

Binoy Kampmark
Swine at the Trough: the Business of Pandemics

Brian Downing
The Perils of Modernization in Afghanistan

Frank Snepp
Tortured by the Past

David Swanson
The Wrong Torture Question

Conn Hallinan
The Coming Asian Storm

Ron Jacobs
Not Dead Yet: an Interview with Jerry Gordon on the State of the Antiwar Movement

John Goekler
The Only Path to a Middle East Picnic?

Jasmine L. Tyler /
Anthony Papa
An End to Crack/Powder Cocaine Sentencing Disparity?

Website of the Day
Emergency Petition: Stop Coal Industry Intimidation of Activists

April 29, 2009

Joann Wypijewski
Death at Work in America

Patrick Cockburn
The Taliban's Roads to Kabul

Andy Worthington
Cheney's Twisted World

Chris Floyd
The Specter Diversion

Dave Lindorff
No More Excuses: a Specter is Haunting the Democrats

Jeremy Scahill
The Nuremberg Truth and Reconciliation Commission?

Doug Henwood
Zionist Lobby Targets Another Tenured Professor: an Interview with William Robinson

Michael Hudson
Will Iceland be Handed Over to a New Gang of Kleptocrats?

Russell Mokhiber
My Ron Pollack Problem--And Yours

Eric Toussaint
Ecuador at the Crossroads

Website of the Day
An Interview with Leslie and Andrew Cockburn on "American Casino"

April 28, 2009

Uri Avnery
A Little Red Light: On Israeli Fascism

Jeremy Scahill
Obama's Iraq: the Picture of Dorian Gray

Dean Baker
The Perfect Gift for Wall Street: a Financial Transactions Tax

Michael D. Yates
At the Factory Gate

Conn Hallinan
Georgian Plots? Saakavili's "Order No. 2"

John Stauber
Beyond MoveOn

Tom Barry
The Failed Border Security Initiative

Harvey Wasserman
Who Pays for America's Chernobyl Roulette?

Jeff Nygaard
Pirates, Profits and Propaganda

Frederico Fuentes
Why the U.S. Still Hates Cuba

Website of the Day
The Man Behind the Hood

April 27, 2009

Pam Martens
The Far Right's Plot to Capture New Hampshire

Patrick Cockburn
Torture? It Probably Killed More Americans Than 9/11

Andrew J. Bacevich Guardian of the Status Quo: Obama's Sins of Omission

Mitu Sengupta
The Bloodbath in Sri Lanka

Franklin Lamb
Hillary Does Beirut: The 165-Minute Swoop-In

Firmin DeBrabander
Crimes of Economic Madness

Dave Lindorff
Wide Open to Pandemic?

Russell Mokhiber
How Corrupt is That?

Mike Whitney
Pinter's Message to Obama

Mark Weisbrot
Overhauling the IMF

Rev. José M. Tirado
Iceland's New Dawn: How the Right Got Trounced

Website of the Day
American Casino

April 24-26, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Putting the Bush Years on Trial

Marjorie Cohn
Torture Used to Try to Link Saddam with 9/11

Andy Worthington
Who Ordered the Torture of Abu Zubaydah?

Jeremy Scahill
Are Leading Democrats Afraid of a Special Prosecutor to Investigate Torture?

Chris Floyd
Top of the Heap: the Democrats' Teachable Moment on Torture

Mike Whitney
A Housing Crash Update

Anthony DiMaggio
Obama and the Housing Crisis

Chris Kromm
Democratic Lobbyists Key to Fight Against Employee Free Choice Act

Saul Landau
Seventeen Months in "the Hole:" an Interview with the Leader of the Cuban Five

Dave Lindorff
Free John Walker Lindh

Greg Moses
The Debt Looters

Joshua Frank
Calling for a Coal Moratorium: an Interview with Ted Nace

Fred Gardner
Collective Farming and the Lynch Case

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Homework, Testing and Stealth Apartheid in Education

David Michael Green
Of Tea Parties and Teleprompters

Ramzy Baroud
Middle East Spies: a New Front in Gaza's Conflict

Rannie Amiri
Mubarak's Expanding Enemies List

Laura Carlsen
Mr. President, Calderon is Not Mexico

Richard Morse
The Haitian People Need a Lobbyist

Nikolas Kozloff
Protecting the Bald Eagle: a Task Now Falling to ... Hugo Chavez?

Kent Peterson
The Fight to Save Mexico's Mangroves

Robert Bryce
The Ethanol Scammers Rent a General

Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Financial Experts

Ron Jacobs
Torture is More Than Just "Harsh Tactics"

Richard Rhames
Roman Legends, Book Burning and History's Hunt

Stephen Martin
Wherefore Art Thou American Dream?

David Yearsley
Rodgers, Hammerstein, Michener and Nostalgia's Clammy Embrace

Poets' Basement
Khalil and Mankh

Website of the Weekend
Doug and Andrea Peacock on Grizzlies and Edward Abbey

April 23, 2009

Eamonn Fingleton
How the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times Buried the Madoff Scandal for at Least Four Years

Ray McGovern
Obama Plays Hamlet on Torture

Michael Ratner
The Torture Commission Trap

Alan Farago
The Quicksand Economy

Rob Larson
Business Gets Carded

Nadia Hijab
The Real Heroes of Durban

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
Deconstructing the Taliban

Dave Lindorff
Are Members of Congress Being Blackmailed?

Helen Redmond
Selling Out Single-Payer: the "Public Option" Con

Adam Federman
The Battle Over New York's Marcellus Shale

Website of the Day
An Interactive Map of Vanishing Employment Across the Country

April 22, 2009

Chris Floyd
The Fatal Thread: Torture, War and the Imperial Project

Joanne Mariner
Torture Evidence and Terror Blacklists

Vijay Prashad
Obama's Afghan Plan: Fracturing the Antiwar Movement

Gareth Porter
U.S. Lacks Capacity to Win Over Afghans

Dean Baker
The Tyranny of Bad Economics

Peter Morici
Housing Sales and Fixing the Economy

Winslow T. Wheeler
Eliminating Bad Pentagon Habits

Barucha Calamity Peller
The Battle to Take Back the New School

Harvey Wasserman
Chernobyl Could Happen Here

Aisha Brown /
Dedrick Muhammad
White Privilege in the Americas

Teo Ballvé
Obama's Feel Good Meeting with Colombia's Uribe

Website of the Day
Ahmedinejad's Durban Speech: What He Actually Said

April 21, 2009

Randy Rowland
Lindy Blake's Great Escape

Dave Lindorff
Jay Bybee's Conspiracy to Torture

Fidel Castro
The Secret Summit

George McGovern
Pull Out of Iraq This Year

Greg Moses
The Unemployment Channel

Benjamin Dangl
Argentina Remembers

Sonia Nettnin
Saving Lives in Gaza

Frank Barat
The Death of Bassem: a Shooting at the Wall in Bil'n

Binoy Kampmark
Legal Purgatory and John Demjanjuk

John V. Walsh
Code Red for Single Payer

David Macaray
SAG Should be Praised, Not Assailed

Website of the Day
Bonus Man: For Executive Assholes Everywhere

April 20, 2009

Mike Whitney
Housing Bust Comes Roaring Back, Worse Than Ever

Andrea Peacock
Histrionics and Legalisms in Missoula

Henry A. Giroux
Ten Years After Columbine: the Tragedy of Youth Deepens

Liaquat Ali Khan
Drone Attacks on Pakistan's Indigenous Tribes

Fred Gardner
Obama's DoJ Backs Prosecution of Medical Marijuana Providers

Stephen Soldz
Obama, Blair, Panetta and the Torture Memos: Praising Moral Cowards, Ignoring Real Heroes

Nadia Hijab
Obama's Multi-Polar Middle East

Dave Lindorff
The Meeting in Trinidad

P. Sainath
India's Press Nixes "R" Word

Nelson P Valdés
A Modest (Transition) Proposal to Obama

Mark Engler
American Empire Foreclosed?

Belén Fernández
The FARC Can't Dance

Website of the Day
Dear Mr. Buffett...

May 18, 2009

Provides New Evidence of APA-Pentagon Collusion

Psychologist Bryce Lefever Clarifies Defense of Torture

By STEPHEN SOLDZ

The recently public posting on the Propublica web site of the listserv from the American Psychological Association's secretive 2005 PENS [Psychological Ethics and National Security] task force has again focused attention on the nature of this task force and on potential collusion between the APA and the Pentagon to provide "ethical" cover for psychologists aiding Bush administration interrogations at Guantanamo, the CIA's "black sites," and  in in Iraq and Afghanistan.

One piece of evidence supporting a claim of collusion is that, in a highly unusual step, the task force membership was kept confidential from both the APA membership and the press and public. Salon reporter Mark Benjamin had to go to Congressional sources to get the names a year later, though it turned out that they had been available on an obscure website, if one had known to look there. APA members learned from Benjamin that a majority of members were from the military-intelligence establishment. Five of these members had aided Bush-era interrogations, with four from chains of command accused of abuses; among other ethical problems with the task force composition, these members were giving themselves get-out-of-jail-free cards by pronouncing these interrogations "ethical."

Not long after the listserv release psychologist and PENS member Bryce Lefever was featured on NPR's All Things Considered, defending CIA torture psychologists Mitchell and Jessen and the reverse-engineering of the military's Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape [SERE] techniques. Lefever revealed in that interview that he saw no ethical problems with Bush administration interrogation tactics, based as they were on the techniques used on US service members in the SERE school where Lefever had served as a psychologist monitoring trainees for possible harm.

The Lefever NPR interview created quite a stir among psychologists, including members of the APA's Council of Representatives, as it revealed the questionable ethical reasoning of those chosen to form policy for the APA in this critical area. Reportedly, a major figure in the APA military psychology division wrote a letter distancing the division from Lefever's extreme views, as depicted on NPR. In response to the criticism, Lefever has issued an Open Letter to military psychologists in which he taken exception to this criticism, and to the NPR interview, claiming major distortions of his views by NPR. In addition to clarifying and defending his views, in this Open Letter Lefever incidentally provides additional evidence of APA-Pentagon collusion in forming the PENS task force.

Before examining his Open Letter, it is useful to understand that this NPR interview was not the first time Lefever made the arguments supporting US interrogation tactics. In an article on the NPR interview, I quoted material from the PENS listserv indicating that he made many of the same arguments to the task force, and was largely ignored, but met with no objection from other members. Further, in August 2007, Lefever defended the SERE-based abuse [torture] of Jose Padilla to a Christian Science Monitor reporter:

'There's something to be said for sending the message that the gloves are coming off,' says Capt. Bryce Lefever, a Navy psychologist and former SERE school instructor. 'You don't take a knife to a gunfight.'

Captain Lefever says it is unfair to compare US antiterror interrogations with Soviet interrogation techniques. 'Their abuse was a systematic practice to conceal the truth,' he says. 'If Padilla was abused, then it was for a righteous purpose – to reveal the truth.'

Lefever opposes the use of torture because in most instances it is ineffective. But sometimes, harsh and brutal tactics can produce results, he adds. The key is that interrogators must be careful in their questions not to telegraph an agenda to the subject, because if the technique is coercive enough, the subject will say anything to make it stop.'

Here is the Lefever Open Letter:

"Open Letter to Military Psychology

To Bill Strickland, Eve Weber and members of the military psychology community:

Over the years, I have granted interviews to various publications on matters pertaining to clinical psychology.  I have done so with the intention to inform, educate and persuade both the professional and lay community on matters that I believe are important to the practice of psychology and to the defense of our nation.  I believe that it is the responsible obligation of citizens to debate matters that affect policy, health, freedom, as well as US and world opinion.   I also believe that free, open and honest expression, in pursuit of the truth, is the only way in which any idea can mature or truly progress.  Actions based on ignorance, if they succeed, will do so on dumb luck.  Clarity in our terms, philosophies and ideas will lead to informed decisions.

When I have spoken to the press, I have done so judiciously and have maintained, in every instance, that I speak as a private citizen.  I have never desired or pretended to speak for another person.  And, I have insisted that I do not speak for the Navy, the Department of Defense, or military psychology.  Until recently, this admonition has been largely respected.

There has been a strong reaction to the interview and accompanying article on NPR All Things Considered.  Much of the negative reaction has come from the military psychology community.  This has caused me considerable anguish-particularly because those colleagues critical of the interview condemned it, me, my participation, etc. without first contacting me or seeking to understand.  The Strickland letter immediately sought to distance the military community from what were assumed to be my views.  In the material that follows, I will address a few of the particulars in where and how NPR misrepresented my views.  Now you might ask how, within a recorded interview, my stated views could be twisted or misrepresented.  Let me provide a few examples:

1.    The correspondent, Alix Spiegel, promised that the story would be mine, that she would be in the background and that I would be able to lay out the thesis.  Now, I am not as naïve as some of you would think.  I am aware of NPR's reputation.  However, with the various assurances, and that my statements would be recorded verbatim, I agreed to the interview.  Hindsight is perfect, however, going in, I had no particular reason to suspect that she would lie, twist and manipulate so egregiously.

2.    The title:  "Military Psychologist Says Harsh Tactics Justified."  If you believe in the honesty of NPR's reporting, and logic, you would assume that the rest of the interview would support that headline.  However, I never made such a statement.  In fact, the article quoted me as saying I was opposed to torture and advocated only slow, rapport-building techniques.  When Strickland's letter stated: "...we strongly disagree with the assertions attributed to Dr. Lefever,"  I was quite taken aback.  I thought that he believed the "hit piece," didn't read the story, and disagreed with my position opposing torture.  It is important that we not twist and mischaracterize or misrepresent each other's positions.

3.    I did not defend Mitchell and Jessen.  I like them and respect them.  However, I told Alix Spiegel several times that they were big boys and could defend themselves.   I did point out I was convinced that harsh tactics worked in interrogation as did a host of other, less harsh measures. I emphatically told her that this was my opinion and that it was a matter for empirical investigation. I stated that in pursuit of the truth, the key when using any interrogation technique, was to never lead the detainee during questioning.

4.    Alix skillfully wove in Answer A on Question B.  For example, I did say that I liked and was proud of the work we did at the SERE Schools.  I did not say or remotely imply that I liked torturing people.  In fact, I have never tortured anyone nor have I advised anyone to do it.  And, by the way, I have never seen it done.

5.    Alix implied that we engaged in tying a prisoner's arms behind his back and keeping him awake lying on the ground-or advocated these tactics.  In fact, I told the story of CAPT Rod Knutson, whose account was well described in the Reader's Digest Book: POW, under the title: "A Tough Nut to Crack."  The technique described was used by the enemy (North Viet Nam-Viet Cong) and is called the rope torture or "rope trick."  Nothing of the like, to my knowledge, has ever been suggested for use by the American Armed Forces.

6.    Alix made it sound like I advocated putting a bug in with a prisoner.  I never suggested this and believe it is a hapless, stupid idea.  However, I did point out that there were similarities between what was called torture in one context and therapy in another.  My general thesis, over three hours of interviewing, was that empiricists, ethicists, behavioral researchers, academicians, and philosophers needed to debate and decide what constituted torture and the effect of context on the topography of behavior.

7.    I was given a voice in this important debate.  This occurred by my appointment to the PENS Taskforce in 2005.  This appointment was officially requested by my Specialty Leader.  It was sanctioned by the Navy.  It is important that those of us who can contribute to the war of ideas and philosophies do so and that the right, reasonable, prudent, and ethical side win.  For example, the pacifist movement before WWII and the appeasers in England, France and other countries had catastrophic consequences on the events that set the stage for the invasion of Europe by Germany, Nazism, and the Third Reich.  My side of the debate includes standing against terror, protecting America, upholding the Constitution, and adhering to American values and rights as protected by the Constitution.  I am resoundly opposed to pacifism as I believe it is a moralistic-feel good about oneself-philosophy which has no historical support for its efficacy and is contrary to everything I know about human (or animal) behavior.

8.    I pointed out to Alix that I was waterboarded in 1990.  I have been quoted as saying (Vanity Fair) that it was terrifying.  It was.  However, I was not harmed by the experience.  I pointed this out to NPR as well as Vanity Fair and others.  This point is never reported by the press.  I told her that there is no life free of pain or adversity.  And, the Waterboard made me stronger, more able to face the various problems of my life.  My general thesis was, if something does not harm you, can you call it torture?  This has been my consistent question from the PENS Taskforce until now.  By this definition, I have now been tortured by NPR, and by those who have chosen to perpetuate their lies-far more so than by my experience on the Waterboard.  I believe that torture must include the element of harm.  Clearly, as psychologists, we are ethically bound to do no harm.

9.    I also informed Alix that my colleagues at APA have passed a resolution that has the breathtaking arrogance of suggesting how my military colleagues should and should not practice in settings that they have decided are or have been abusive to our Detainees.  I am sure that there have been psychologist consultants to business and industry and that many of those businesses, banks or industry are now failing at great cost to Americans. Perhaps we should pass a resolution limiting their activities. Perhaps those consultants should be limited to treating only those who have lost money at those banks or businesses.  The fact of the matter is that those who have committed heinous acts (criminals, terrorists) are deprived of some or all of their human rights (through incarceration, loss of rights to vote, death penalty, etc.).  Even those accused of committing these acts, though presumed innocent, are deprived of their liberty for the benefit and safety of society.  Human Rights and Ethics are different concerns-although in an ideal world, one becomes the other.  In a world of terror, the peaceful, moral, productive citizen must be protected by those who would deprive his rights by force, terror and deceit.  This is what I swore to do when I took my oath. Our enemies are both foreign and domestic.

10.    This is the easiest possible criticism that someone can make: "You should have done more, or you should have done something different."  The set of things we don't do is infinitely larger that the set we choose to do.  Our first order of business is to seek and to promote understanding so that we will be wise in the few things we choose to do.

11.    Finally, I told Alix that the reputation of America-mostly to other Americans-was a vital concern.  It is our own self-opinion of what America stands for that is at issue.  It was correctly reported that I have no particular fondness for our enemy-but I would and have behaved correctly and ethically in regard to him for our sake.

Yours truly,                                               
Bryce Lefever

In this Letter Lefever apparently is saying that "harsh" techniques are sometimes effective, and that they are, in many cases, not harmful, and therefore cannot be considered to be "torture." Lefever similarly told the PENS task force that they shouldn't assume that SERE-based techniques would be harmful to US detainees because, he claimed, they were character-building for US troops who went through SERE:

"When I brought up the idea of harm, and what is harm, it fell on deaf ears. I pointed out that behavioral and psychological techniques used in training our high-risk-of-capture students in Survival Schools [SERE] are viewed as vital, necessary, good, and for the greater good. Psychologists are strong proponents of these techniques even though they inflict psychological and physical pain. Yet the very same behaviors are proscribed by the Department of Defense and viewed as harmful when applied to America’s prisoners."

This new letter helps clarify his claim to the PENS listserv. His argument is that, because these SERE-based techniques are not "harmful," they are not torture. "I was waterboarded in 1990.... However, I was not harmed by the experience.... My general thesis was, if something does not harm you, can you call it torture?"

Therefore psychologists, ethically-bound as they are to "do no harm," can ethically adopt waterboarding or any other SERE-based techniques. Because of this reasoning, he can claim that he never used or witnessed "torture." Not when he was a SERE psychologist witnessing SERE techniques used on US service members , one presumes. And not when he trained interrogators in Afghanistan. Given his caveats, we are still left wondering what techniques he did use in Afghanistan.

Lefever says he only used "rapport-building." However, we now know that the abuses in Guantanamo from 2003 on were often described as "rapport-building." Thus, we are left wondering which "non-harmful" techniques he taught US interrogators in Afghanistan.

Another very important element of this letter is that it confirms the extensive collaboration between the APA and the military in the creation of the PENS task force. Lefveer tells us:

"I was given a voice in this important debate.  This occurred by my appointment to the PENS Taskforce in 2005.  This appointment was officially requested by my Specialty Leader.  It was sanctioned by the Navy."

Lefever here tells us that he, a member of the task force was "officially requested" by a military official and was officially sanctioned by the Navy. This puts the lie to any claim that APA leaders selected the task force. Rather, they merely ratified choices "officially requested" by military officials. They thus surrendered the association's ethics decision-making to the military.

Lefever, in his sincerity, further informs us that "human rights" are divorced from "ethics" in the real world. While human rights are concerned about the rights of individuals, Lefever makes clear that he feels an ethical obligation to ride roughshod over those rights in order to protect "the peaceful, moral, productive citizen." He shows a profound misunderstanding of the fundamentals of our criminal justice system when he state, and his willingness to dispense with many of the protections that protect our freedoms:

"Even those accused of committing these acts, though presumed innocent, are deprived of their liberty for the benefit and safety of society."

Perhaps most chillingly, Lefever concludes his discussion of the flaws and dangers of "human rights" and of pacifism by stating "Our enemies are both foreign and domestic." Given the totality of the Letter, it certainly is reasonable to wonder if "pacifists" and "human rights" advocates are among those domestic enemies he has sworn to fight. Safe to say, few even among the APA leadership would openly support such views.

In putting Bryce Lefever, along with the other military-intelligence members, on the PENS task force and making them their "ethics" policy-makers, and in keeping their  participation secret, the APA demonstrated the extremes to which they were willing to go to do the Bush administration's bidding.

With a new administration in Washington, the APAis busy trying to scrub their recent history. They may even rescind the PENS report, defended so vigorously for years, that resulted from this flawed process. But no mere policy change can be sufficient without a detailed understanding of how and why the nation's largest organization of psychologists created this obviously flawed and unethical "ethics" process. Four organizations --  Coalition for an Ethical Psychology, Psychologists for Social Responsibility, Psychologists for an Ethical APA, and Physicians for Human Rights -- have so far called for independent investigations of APA-Bush administration ties. This investigation is necessary to begin the process of reforming an organization that has gone so far astray. The investigation must then be followed by changes in organizational structures and personnel to reduce the chances of a recurrence of flawed policy-making in the wake of the next national crisis.

Stephen Soldz is a psychoanalyst, psychologist, public health researcher, and faculty member at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis. He maintains the Psychoanalysts for Peace and Justice web site and the Psyche, Science, and Society blog. He is a founder of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology, one of the organizations working to change American Psychological Association policy on participation in abusive interrogations. He is also a Steering Committee member of Psychologists for Social Responsibility [PsySR].

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