There is a Hall of Shame for most every profession: Priests, Congress, Mayors, Senators, Governors, Teachers, Coaches… and Psychologists, Nurses, Doctors, Ministers… and more.

In George Bush’s Secret and not so secret torture ideal, aimed at innocents and those never proven guilty… there was a Presidential ok on the CIA hiring of two American Psychological Association members in ‘good standing.’ Though many persons including this writer/psychoanalyst petititioned APA to absolutely desist and to denounce any support of such heinous endeavor by persons who are supposed to be dedicated in their workplace, to helping and healing. Not torture.

It was beyond The Pale, that APA declined to dismiss or discipline the two psychologists, declined to issue a clear statement of ethics that absolutely forbid any member to participate in harming other human beings. We did not know until years later, that some of the APA hierarchy appeared to be colluding with the CIA program.

This week, three of the men/families harmed by the torture aggression [one man froze to death], and their court case brought by ACLU against US Government and more, was NOT thrown out of Federal Court, but will progress according to the decree of a Federal Judge. In other words, for now, the fact of George Bush’s torture program, the two psychologists who participated willingly, and others, are NOT being swept under the rug. After years of being swept under the rug.

Why, you might ask would two unknown psychologists be interested in entering the dark, shaming, maiming and murderous ways of Torquemada, to hang out with persons whose darkest fantasies are forcing people to tell them anything they want to hear, in order to be free of excruciating pain. Not to mention a long recovery and lifelong injuries from the effects of torture, including global injury to the lungs, kidneys, heart, closed head injuries, and more.

Good question.

From an article by Shaun Mullen:

“Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen were looking for businesses opportunities. The military retirees, both psychologists, found a lucrative one at the CIA, which was looking for a veneer of respectability for its interrogation program in the post-9/11 world. Never mind that neither man had ever carried out real interrogations, their PhD dissertations were on family therapy and high blood pressure, and they had no language skills or knowledge of Al Qaeda.

“In addition to their psychology credentials, what Jessen and Mitchell did have was knowledge of the brutal treatment regime used by Chinese communists on American prisoners of war in Korea, and that fit the CIA bill.
The psychologists’ fall from grace was as rapid as their rise. Today their lucrative business — Mitchell Jessen and Associates — which operated out of an historic building in downtown Spokane, is empty, their CIA contract suspended and they are in the crosshairs of the ACLU suit.

“Like a radio wave reaching earth from some cosmic calamity millennia ago, a federal judge has ruled that a lawsuit brought by victims of the Bush Torture Regime may move forward.

“Not a single ranking official has been punished for their complicity in what is unarguably the darkest element of the darkest era in modern American history — the Bush administration’s secret endorsement of the use of torture on enemy detainees by and in conjunction with the CIA in violation of U.S. and international law. These Nazi-like interrogation techniques included waterboarding, imprisonment in small boxes, slapping and punching, sleep deprivation, being doused with icy cold water, mock execution, threats that detainees’ children would be killed and their mothers sexually assaulted, and forced rectal feeding.

“But now a senior federal judge in Washington state had green lighted an ACLU lawsuit for possible trial on behalf of a Tanzanian fisherman, an exile from the regime of Libyan strongman Mummer Gaddafi and an Afghan refugee who died of hypothermia while in captivity. All were held for years and subjected to torture although they were never accused of being members of Al Qaeda or any other terrorist organization, nor charged with any crimes.”

Read the rest of the article along with the three detainees’ bios and the rest of the egregious background here.

One of the few outcomes that is good that has come from this is that APA being themselves attacked and attacked, pleaded with and pleaded with by stalwart and ethical APA members and other concerned helping professionals, after YEARS, finally opened itself to an investigation, and several in the hierarchy were found to have colluded and supported the two APA members whom they knew were involved in the torture devisement. There is more at Mullins article on that also.

In terms of accountability, George Bush and the CIA present at that time, remain at large.

******The image is from Kiko’s House site, of one of the plaintiffs, SULEIMAN ABDULLAH SALIM “a Tanzanian fisherman who was abducted by the CIA and Kenyan security forces in 2003 and rendered to a CIA prison codenamed COBALT, then to a second prison known as the “Salt Pit,” and finally to a prison at Bagram Air Base. He was released after four years of being held in solitary confinement and tortured.”