Utter disgrace

Spencer Ackerman has a good summary of the report on the American Psychological Association's collusion with torture, issued by former assistant U.S. Attorney David Hoffman. This information isn't really new, though some of the details are, but apparently we needed the report before anybody could do anything about it. Writes Ackerman:

Sources with knowledge of the report and its consequences, who requested anonymity to discuss the findings before public release, expected a wave of firings and resignations across the leadership of an organization that Hoffman finds used its extensive institutional links to the CIA and US military to facilitate abusive interrogations.

This whole atrocity is almost as strange as it is disturbing. I would venture to say that the vast majority of APA members are as outraged as I am. So how could the leadership have been so completely co-opted by Dick Cheney?

Well, the answer is money. With NIH research funding drying up, the Department of Defense was an increasingly important source of money for psychological research. And of course DoD directly employs a lot of psychologist as well, in intelligence as well as clinical work. Most of the APA members involved in crafting relevant policy had ties to DoD or intelligence agencies.

Money can buy unlimited immorality.