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First Republican Debate of 2016 Presidential Race Kicks Off on Fox News with Roger Ailes Favorites
Ten leading Republican presidential candidates faced off in the first debate of the 2016 presidential election Thursday night. Fox News invited 10 candidates to take part: Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Donald Trump and Scott Walker. Some analysts described the debate as the Roger Ailes primary since the head of Fox News had so much say into who participated in the prime-time event. Seven other Republican presidential candidates who didn’t make the cut participated in another debate earlier in the evening. Fox News said it calculated its top 10 list by averaging five national polls, a process which came under fire from polling agencies earlier this week. We feature highlights from the debate.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Ten leading Republican presidential candidates faced off in the first debate of the 2016 presidential election Thursday night. Fox News invited 10 candidates to take part: Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Donald Trump and Scott Walker. Some analysts described the debate as the Roger Ailes primary, since the head of Fox News had so much say in who participated in the prime-time event. Seven other Republican presidential candidates who didn’t make the cut participated in another debate earlier in the evening. Fox News said it calculated its top 10 list by averaging five national polls, a process which came under fire from polling agencies earlier this week.
These are highlights from the debate. We begin with one of the moderators, Megyn Kelly of Fox News.
MEGYN KELLY: Mr. Trump, one of the things people love about you is you speak your mind and you don’t use a politician’s filter. However, that is not without its downsides, in particular when it comes to women. You’ve called women you don’t like "fat pigs," "dogs," "slobs" and "disgusting animals." Your Twitter account has several—
DONALD TRUMP: Only Rosie O’Donnell.
MEGYN KELLY: No, it wasn’t. Your Twitter account—
DONALD TRUMP: Thank you.
MEGYN KELLY: For the record, it was well beyond Rosie O’Donnell.
DONALD TRUMP: Yes, I’m sure it was.
MEGYN KELLY: Your Twitter account has several disparaging comments about women’s looks. You once told a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees. Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president? And how will you answer the charge from Hillary Clinton, who is likely to be the Democratic nominee, that you are part of the war on women?
DONALD TRUMP: I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct. I’ve been—I’ve been challenged by so many people, and I don’t, frankly, have time for total political correctness. And to be honest with you, this country doesn’t have time either. This country is in big trouble. We don’t win anymore. We lose to China. We lose to Mexico, both in trade and at the border. We lose to everybody. And frankly, what I say—and oftentimes it’s fun, it’s kidding, we have a good time—what I say is what I say. And honestly, Megyn, if you don’t like it, I’m sorry. I’ve been very nice to you, although I could probably maybe not be, based on the way you have treated me. But I wouldn’t do that.
MEGYN KELLY: Governor Bush, for days on end in this campaign, you struggled to answer a question about whether knowing what we know now—
JEB BUSH: I remember.
MEGYN KELLY: —you would have invaded Iraq.
JEB BUSH: I remember, Megyn.
MEGYN KELLY: I remember it, too. And ISIS, of course, is now thriving there. You finally said no. To the families of those who died in that war who say they liberated a country and deposed a ruthless dictator, how do you look at them now and say your brother’s war was a mistake?
JEB BUSH: Knowing what we know now, with faulty intelligence, and not having security be the first priority when—when we invaded, it was a mistake. I wouldn’t have gone in. However, for the people that did lose their lives, and the families that suffer because of it—I know this full well, because as governor of the state of Florida, I called every one of them, every one of them that I could find, to tell them that I was praying for them, that I cared about them, and it was very hard to do. And every one of them said that their child did not die in vain, or their wife or husband did not die in vain. And so, why it was difficult for me to do it was based on that. Here’s the lesson that we should take from this, which relates to this whole subject: Barack Obama became president, and he abandoned Iraq. He left, and when he left, al-Qaeda was done for. ISIS was created because of the void that we left, and that void now exists as a caliphate the size of Indiana.
MEGYN KELLY: Governor Christie, you have said that Senator Paul’s opposition to the NSA’s collection of phone records has made the United States weaker and more vulnerable, even going so far as to say that he should be called before Congress to answer for it, if we should be hit by another terrorist attack. Do you really believe you can assign blame to Senator Paul just for opposing the bulk collection of people’s phone records in the event of a terrorist attack?
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE: Yes, I do. And I’ll tell you why: because I’m the only person on this stage who’s actually filed applications under the PATRIOT Act, who have gone before the federal—the Foreign Intelligence service court, who has prosecuted and investigated and jailed terrorists in this country after September 11th. And I will make no apologies ever for protecting the lives and the safety of the American people. We have to give more tools to our folks to be able to do that, not fewer, and then trust those people and oversee them to do it the right way. As president, that is exactly what I’ll do.
SEN. RAND PAUL: Megyn, may I respond? May I respond?
MEGYN KELLY: Go ahead, sir.
SEN. RAND PAUL: I want to collect more records from terrorists, but less records from innocent Americans. The Fourth Amendment was what we fought the Revolution over. John Adams said it was the spark that led to our war for independence. And I’m proud of standing for the Bill of Rights, and I will continue to stand for the Bill of Rights.
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE: And—and, Megyn? Megyn, that’s a—that, you know, that’s a completely ridiculous answer: "I want to collect more records from terrorists, but less records from other people." How are you supposed to know, Megyn?
SEN. RAND PAUL: Use the Fourth Amendment!
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE: What are you supposed to—
SEN. RAND PAUL: Use the Fourth Amendment!
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE: How are you supposed to—no, I’ll tell you how you—
SEN. RAND PAUL: Get a warrant!
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE: Look, let me tell you something. You go—
SEN. RAND PAUL: Get a judge to sign the warrant.
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE: When you—you know, Senator—
SEN. RAND PAUL: Use the Constitution.
MEGYN KELLY: Wait, wait. Governor Christie, make your point.
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE: Listen, Senator, you know, when you’re sitting in a subcommittee just blowing hot air about this, you can say things like that. When you’re responsible for protecting the lives of the American people, then what you need to do is to make sure—
SEN. RAND PAUL: Here’s the problem.
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE: —is to make that you use the system the way it’s supposed to work.
SEN. RAND PAUL: Here’s the problem, Governor. Here’s the problem, Governor. You fundamentally misunderstand the Bill of Rights. Every time you did a case, you got a warrant from a judge. I’m talking about searches without warrants—
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE: There is no—
SEN. RAND PAUL: —indiscriminately of all Americans’ records, and that’s what I fought to end. I don’t trust President Obama with our records. I know you gave him a big hug. And if you want to give him a big hug again, go right ahead.
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE: And—
MEGYN KELLY: Go ahead, Governor.
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE: And, you know—you know, Senator Paul—Senator Paul, you know the hugs that I remember are the hugs that I gave to the families who lost their people on September 11th. Those are the hugs I remember. And those had nothing to do—and those had nothing to do with politics, unlike what you’re doing by cutting speeches on the floor of the Senate, then putting them on the Internet within a half an hour to raise money for your campaign—
MEGYN KELLY: All right.
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE: —and while still putting our country at risk.
MEGYN KELLY: Governor Walker, you’ve consistently said that you want to make abortion illegal, even in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother. You recently signed an abortion law in Wisconsin that does have an exception for the mother’s life, but you’re on record as having objected to it. Would you really let a mother die rather than have an abortion? And with 83 percent of the American public in favor of a life exception, are you too out of the mainstream on this issue to win the general election?
GOV. SCOTT WALKER: Well, I’m—I’m pro-life. I’ve always been pro-life. And I’ve got a position I think is consistent with many Americans out there, in that—in that I believe that that is an unborn child that’s in need of protection out there. And I’ve said many a time that that unborn child can be protected, and there are many other alternatives that will also protect the life of that mother. That’s been consistently proven. Unlike Hillary Clinton, who has a radical position in terms of support for Planned Parenthood, I defunded Planned Parenthood more than four years ago, long before any of these videos came out. I’ve got a position that’s in line with everyday America.
MEGYN KELLY: Senator Rubio, you favor a rape and incest exception to abortion bans. Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York just said yesterday those exceptions are preposterous. He said they discriminate against an entire class of human beings. If you believe that life begins at conception, as you say you do, how do you justify ending a life just because it begins violently, through no fault of the baby?
SEN. MARCO RUBIO: Well, Megyn, first of all, I’m not sure that that’s a correct assessment of my record. I would go on to add that I believe all human life—
MEGYN KELLY: You don’t favor a rape and an incest exception?
SEN. MARCO RUBIO: I have never said that, and I have never advocated that. What I have advocated is that we pass a law in this country that says all human life, at every stage of its development, is worthy of protection. In fact, I think that law already exists. It’s called the Constitution of the United States.
BRET BAIER: Senator Paul, would you tear up the deal on day one?
SEN. RAND PAUL: I oppose the Iranian deal and will vote against it. I don’t think that the president negotiated from a position of strength, but I don’t immediately discount negotiations.
BRET BAIER: Governor Huckabee, what do you think about what Senator Paul just said?
MIKE HUCKABEE: Ronald Reagan said, "Trust, but verify." President Obama is "trust, but vilify." He trusts our enemies and vilifies everyone who disagrees with him. And the reason we disagree with him has nothing to do with party. It has to do with the incredibly dangerous place that this world is going to be as a result of a deal in which we got nothing. We didn’t even get four hostages out. We got nothing, and Iran gets everything they want. We said we would have anywhere-anytime negotiations and inspections; we gave that up. We said that we would make sure that they didn’t have any nuclear capacity; we gave that up. The president can’t tell us what we got. I’ll tell you what the world got. The world has a burgeoning nuclear power that didn’t, as the Soviets, say, "We might defend ourselves in a war." What the Iranians have said is, "We will wipe Israel off the face of the map, and we will bring death to America." When someone points a gun at your head and loads it, by God, you ought to take them seriously.
MEGYN KELLY: Senator Cruz, how would you destroy ISIS in 90 days?
SEN. TED CRUZ: Megyn, we need a commander-in-chief that speaks the truth. We will not defeat radical Islamic terrorism so long as we have a president unwilling to utter the words "radical Islamic terrorism."
MEGYN KELLY: You don’t see it as an ideological problem, an ideological problem in addition to a military one?
SEN. TED CRUZ: Megyn, of course it’s an ideological problem. That’s one of the reasons why I introduced the Expatriate Terrorist Act in the Senate, that said if any American travels to the Middle East and joins ISIS, that he or she forfeits their citizenship, so they don’t use a passport to come back and wage jihad on Americans. Yes, it is ideological. And let me contrast President Obama, who at the prayer breakfast, essentially acted as an apologist. He said, "Well, gosh, the crusades, the inquisitions." We need a president that shows the courage that Egypt’s President el-Sisi did, a Muslim, when he called out the radical Islamic terrorists who are threatening the world.
BRET BAIER: Governor Huckabee, the culture of the American military is definitely changing. Women are moving into combat roles. "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" has obviously been dropped. And now Defense Secretary Ashton Carter recently directed the military to prepare for a moment when it is welcoming transgender persons to serve openly. As commander-in-chief, how would you handle that?
MIKE HUCKABEE: The military is not a social experiment. The purpose of the military is kill people and break things. It’s not to transform the culture by trying out some ideas that some people think would make us a different country and more diverse. The purpose is to protect America. I’m not sure how paying for transgender surgery for soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines makes our country safer.
CHRIS WALLACE: Mr. Trump, it has not escaped anybody’s notice that you say that the Mexican government—the Mexican government—is sending criminals—rapists, drug dealers—across the border. Governor Bush has called those remarks, quote, "extraordinarily ugly." I’d like you—you’re right next to him—tell us—talk to him directly and say how you respond to that.
DONALD TRUMP: So, if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t even be talking about illegal immigration, Chris. You wouldn’t even be talking about it. This was not a subject that was on anybody’s mind until I brought it up at my announcement. And I said Mexico is sending. Except the reporters, because they’re a very dishonest lot, generally speaking, in the world of politics, they didn’t cover my statement the way I said it. The fact is, since then, many killings, murders, crime, drugs pouring across the border, are money going out and the drugs coming in. And I said we need to build a wall, and it has to be built quickly. And I don’t mind having a big, beautiful door in that wall so that people can come into this country legally. But we need, Jeb, to build a wall. We need to keep illegals out.
BRET BAIER: Governor Huckabee, on Facebook, John Pietricone asked this: "Will you abolish or take away the powers and cut the size of the EPA, the IRS, the Department of Education?" Now, broadly—broadly, the size of government is a big concern for Facebook users, Facebook persons, as well as, obviously, conservatives. But year after year, decade after decade, there are promises from Republicans to shrink government. But year after year, decade after decade, it doesn’t happen. In fact, it gets bigger, even under Republican politicians. So the question is: At this point, is the government simply too big for any one person, even a Republican, to shrink?
MIKE HUCKABEE: It’s not too big to shrink. But the problem is we have a Wall Street-to-Washington axis of power that has controlled the political climate. The donor class feeds the political class, who does the dance that the donor class wants. And the result is, federal government keeps getting bigger. Every person on this stage who has been a governor will tell that you that the biggest fight they had was not the other party, wasn’t even the legislature. It was the federal government, who continually put mandates on the states that we had to suck up and pay for. And the fact is, there are a lot of things happening at the federal level that are absolutely beyond the jurisdiction of the Constitution. This is power that should be shifted back to the states, whether it’s the EPA. There is no role at the federal level for the Department of Education. And I’m still one who says that we can get rid of the Internal Revenue Service if we would pass the fair tax, which is a tax on consumption rather than a tax on people’s income, and move power back where the founders believed it should have been all along.
AMY GOODMAN: That was former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee at last night’s Republican presidential debate on Fox News.
And that does it for today’s show. We have a full-time job opening in New York for a social media editor. Visit our website at democracynow.org.
Also, I’ll be speaking Tuesday in Venice, Italy, at the Creative Time Summit at the Venice Biennale. That’s at 11:00 at the Arsenale in Venice. And we’ll be broadcasting from Venice on Monday and Tuesday. Check our website for details.
Special thanks to our crew here in Toronto: Mike Burke, Amy Littlefield, John Hamilton, Denis Moynihan.
James Risen: In Sharp Break from Past, APA Set to Vote on Barring Psychologists from Interrogations
We speak with Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter James Risen, who has extensively reported on the APA’s ties to the CIA and Pentagon’s torture program and is in Toronto to cover the American Psychological Association’s annual meeting. He talks about the significance of today’s scheduled vote by the APA’s Council of Representatives on barring psychologists from participating in interrogations. "It is a very sharp break from their past practices," Risen notes. "It is in response to an investigation that found collusion between psychologists and the Bush administration on interrogations."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, around 6:00 this morning, I spoke with the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter James Risen, who has come to cover this meeting, as well. He has extensively reported on the APA’s ties to the CIA and Pentagon’s torture program, and he’s covering the meeting that’s taking place today. I asked him to talk about the significance of the APA meeting and today’s vote, that’s happening as we broadcast, by the APA’s Council of Representatives on barring psychologists from participating in CIA and military interrogations.
JAMES RISEN: Yeah, I think this is a very important meeting for the APA and for the psychological profession. It’s where they are going to vote today—or at least they are expected to vote today—on whether to allow—whether to prohibit psychologists, on ethical grounds, from remaining involved in any national security interrogations, including those that are now being conducted or are under the Obama administration, noncoercive interrogations. And so, it’s a very sharp break from their past practices, and it’s in response to, you know, an investigation that found collusion between psychologists and the Bush administration on interrogations.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s not clear how this vote will go. Talk about the factions within the American Psychological Association. Some people have been forced out, some people have resigned. But still, it is not clear which direction the vote will go.
JAMES RISEN: Right. I think, you know, there are some people who have opposed the proposed ban. I think there are some groups within the psychological profession who are more involved with government, either military or other agencies. And—
AMY GOODMAN: Like Division 19, the Society for Military Psychologists?
JAMES RISEN: Right, right. And some of those people believe that this goes too far, that it goes beyond just a break with the reported collusion in the Bush administration, and now, that they think that this is kind of impeding on their turf of involvement with the military. And so it will be interesting to see how far that debate goes, whether there are enough people who support this ban versus those who are—you know, believe that it goes too far.
AMY GOODMAN: You have written extensively about how U.S. psychologists involved in these interrogation programs shielded the torture program. Explain.
JAMES RISEN: Well, the Hoffman Report, which came out about a month ago, I guess, now, basically described the ways in which—very subtle and nuanced ways that both individual prominent psychologists and staff and officials from the American Psychological Association worked kind of behind the scenes over the years to make sure that, even as the APA said they were opposed to torture, that they created policies that made sure that psychologists could stay involved with the Bush-era interrogation programs by the CIA and by the Pentagon. And so, it was a really interesting report that kind of detailed the very subtle, backroom ways that the people involved would maneuver to kind of, at the same—at one point—at the same time that they’re saying they’re opposed to abusive tactics and interrogation that went—was too abusive, but actually making sure that they didn’t do anything to block psychologists from being involved. And so, I thought the Hoffman Report really captured the subtleties and nuances of how that happened really well.
AMY GOODMAN: And what else was most stunning to you about this report, that actually was commissioned by the American Psychological Association?
JAMES RISEN: Yeah, I thought, to me, what was interesting was that the APA board entered into this report. They hired David Hoffman, the Chicago lawyer, to do this report. At the time, they were saying, "You know, there are these accusations out there, but we don’t believe them, and so we’re going to have a—get a report." And I don’t think that the board, when they hired Hoffman, expected to get such a damning and scathing report, because I’ve talked to members of the board since then, and they’ve said they were shocked by the findings of the Hoffman Report. And I think that is what is really driving this vote today, is how shocked the leadership of the APA is by the findings and how they now kind of have many of—many senior members of the APA, I think, have been kind of issuing mea culpas, saying that the critics who they had ignored for many years were right, and we now have to recognize that.
AMY GOODMAN: A lot of this came from your book in revealing emails that you got a hold of. Explain what you found, James Risen.
JAMES RISEN: Sure. Well, it was interesting. My book, Pay Any Price, came out last year. I had gotten the emails of a behavioral scientist named Scott Gerwehr. He was a very interesting character who died in 2008. He was a researcher at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica and then later at a defense contractor. And he had—before he died, he had reached out to a human rights organization and a human rights investigator, Nathaniel Raymond at Physicians for Human Rights. And he seemed like he—from talking to Nathaniel, he and some other people, it seemed like he wanted to talk about what the CIA was doing, in terms of interrogations. It was never clear exactly what his role was to either Nathaniel or to anyone else, but he clearly knew things.
And so, after he died, I was able to gain access to his email archive going back many years. And it didn’t show that he had any kind of smoking-gun revelation about the Bush administration or the CIA interrogation program, but what it showed was that he had connections with all kinds of people in Washington, especially the intersection between the intelligence community and the psychological profession. And in particular, there were a lot of emails, in which he was copied, between people at the CIA and the American Psychological Association and the Defense Department and others. And it all showed these kind of—it kind of revealed that there had been some effort behind the scenes to kind of shape the nature of the APA’s policies on interrogation after Abu Ghraib and after the scandal broke, and that there was, you know, really a cooperation or coordination on their policy efforts in 2005 to deal with the interrogation program or policy, in which CIA, Pentagon and others were taking roles in how that was taking shape.
AMY GOODMAN: You’ve written in one of your latest reports in The New York Times about Obama administration officials saying that in interviews, that psychologists still play roles in the national security interrogations in terrorism cases.
JAMES RISEN: Right. Yeah, there’s the main interrogation program for high-value terrorism targets, is what they—I guess they call it the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Program, which is led by the FBI, but it also has people from the Defense Department and the CIA. That group actually deploys out when they capture somebody overseas, or they’re involved sometimes when someone, a high-value person, is arrested here. And it’s outside the normal, you know, kind of legal process of—in some cases, or the domestic criminal investigation, it can be outside that. And so, that’s considered a national security interrogation program.
There’s also psychologists at Guantánamo, and they still play roles in terms of—you know, what I was told was that at Guantánamo, if a detainee wants to talk with someone, that a psychologist will be involved. So, they are still involved, and in various ways, in the interrogation programs, and so it will be interesting if this passes. And if the new ethics guideline prohibits their involvement, you know, how the APA is going to deal with the Obama administration will be, I think, the really interesting issue. Will there be some effort by the Obama administration to deal with—to address this issue or not? So I don’t know.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, this is the first American Psychological Association meeting, the largest association of psychologists in the world, that won’t have a certain group of leaders at its helm.
JAMES RISEN: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: They’ve been forced out, like Stephen Behnke, the head of the ethics division. Can you talk about these high-level removals, firings, resignations?
JAMES RISEN: Yeah, I think that four top officials from the APA have left either through retirement or resignation or being forced out, including the chief executive and one of his deputies and the—as you said, Behnke, the ethics director. And so, it’s really interesting to see today, or this weekend, you know, how the membership responds to that. There had been some critics who say it hasn’t—the moves haven’t gone far enough.
AMY GOODMAN: There’s a call for the current president to be ousted or to leave.
JAMES RISEN: Yes, yes. And so, it will be interesting to see if any of that takes shape here. And it will be interesting because I’m not sure how far—you know, where the mainstream or the majority of the members are in terms of whether they are now on the side of the critics or whether they think this has gone far enough.
AMY GOODMAN: Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter James Risen, author of Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War. I interviewed him early this morning here in Toronto, Canada, ahead of the American Psychological Association’s vote on barring psychologists from participating in national security interrogations. The vote is expected to take place sometime today. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. In our third segment today, we’ll bring you excerpts of the Republican debate, but we’re going to go back to the dissident psychologists speaking out against torture. Stay with us.
Lead the Way Out of the Interrogation Room: Will American Psychological Assoc. End Role in Torture?
We broadcast from Toronto, Canada, where the largest group of psychologists in the world, the American Psychological Association, his holding its first meeting since the release of a stunning report confirming the APA leadership actively colluded with the Pentagon and the CIA, manipulating the organization’s policies, meetings and members in order to endorse the torture programs. For the past decade, a group of dissident psychologists have protested the use of psychologists to conduct interrogations at CIA black sites and Guantánamo. For years they were ignored and ridiculed. But that changed with the recent release of the "Hoffman Report," a 542-page independent review commissioned by the APA’s board of directors. The study undermined the APA’s repeated denials that some of its 130,000 members were complicit in torture. Following the release, four top APA officials resigned or announced early retirements. Today the APA’s Council of Representatives is scheduled to vote on a resolution to bar psychologists from participating in interrogations. It is unclear if the measure will pass. Ahead of the vote, Psychologists for Social Responsibility hosted a town hall meeting here in Toronto last night. Speakers included New York-based psychologist Steven Reisner, a leading critic of the APA’s policies and founder of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology. "We have to make sure the APA goes from leading us into the dark side, leading us into the torture room … to leading the way out of the interrogation room," Reisner says.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, and we are broadcasting from Toronto, Canada, the site of the annual convention of the largest group of psychologists in the world, the American Psychological Association. It’s the first meeting of the APA since the release of a stunning report confirming that the American Psychological Association leadership actively colluded with the Pentagon and the CIA, manipulating the APA’s policies, meetings and members in order to endorse torture programs.
For the past decade, a group of dissident psychologists have protested the use of psychologists to conduct interrogations at CIA black sites and Guantánamo. For years they were ignored and ridiculed. But that changed with the recent release of the Hoffman Report, a 542-page independent review commissioned by the APA’s board of directors. The study undermined the APA’s repeated denials that some of its 130,000 members were complicit in torture. Following the release, four top APA officials resigned or announced early retirements or were forced out.
Today the APA’s Council of Representatives is scheduled to vote on a resolution to bar psychologists from participating in interrogations. It’s unclear if the measure will pass. Ahead of the vote, Psychologists for Social Responsibility hosted a town hall meeting here in Toronto last night. Speakers included New York-based psychologist Steven Reisner, a leading critic of the APA’s policies and founder of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology.
STEVEN REISNER: Right now, there are psychologists at Guantánamo Bay, and they’re not only doing therapy. Psychologists are involved in the force-feeding of detainees who are on hunger strikes. The force-feeding of detainees who are on voluntary hunger strikes is a violation of international law. Nobody has called out those psychologists or any of the other health professionals to say, "You are in violation of international law. You are participating in causing or perpetuating harm." So we have to make sure that APA goes from leading us into the dark side, leading us into the torture room, leading us into the use of psychology for abuse—we have to turn APA to leading the way out of the interrogation room, out of the violation of international human rights. Psychologists have got to be the leaders now in transforming the role of health professionals away from standing by or perpetuating human rights violations into holding a standard that says, "No, we will not be present at places where this happens. If we are, we will protest it and leave."
It has to be a clear policy, which we’ve written. Dan Aalbers, Scott Churchill, Jean Maria Arrigo, with my help, have written a very comprehensive policy. This policy prohibits psychologists from being present at sites that violate international law, from participating in national security interrogations, from overseeing national security detention sites when they exist to promote intelligence gathering or interrogations. This is a good policy. But tomorrow, the American Psychological Association Council of Representatives has to vote on this policy. And I can tell you, its passage is by no means assured.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Steven Reisner, a founding member of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology, speaking last night at a town hall meeting here in Toronto, where the American Psychological Association is holding its annual convention.
Gitmo is a "Rights-Free Zone": Dissident Psychologists Speak Out on APA Role in CIA-Pentagon Torture
We broadcast from Toronto, Canada, site of the annual convention of the largest group of psychologists in the world, the American Psychological Association. Ahead of a vote on a resolution to bar psychologists from participating in national security interrogations, the Psychologists for Social Responsibility hosted a town hall meeting. We feature highlights.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: "Waterboarding" by Jonathan Mann. In 2009, he wrote a song a day for the entire year. This is song 109. The lyrics are from the actual torture memos of the Bush administration.
This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. We’re broadcasting from Toronto, Canada, the site of the convention of the largest group of psychologists in the world, the American Psychological Association. The group’s Council of Representatives is scheduled to vote today on a resolution to bar psychologists from participating in national security interrogations. Ahead of the vote, Psychologists for Social Responsibility hosted a town hall meeting at Saint Andrew’s Presbyterian Church here in Toronto last night. These are some of the voices from the gathering. We begin with Widney Brown of Physicians for Human Rights.
WIDNEY BROWN: There needs to be a very strict rule excluding psychologists, as other health associations have done, from participation in interrogations. It’s quite simple. A concept of a harm reduction model simply does not work when one person is trying to hurt another. That is why doctors do not engage and monitor to keep torture victims alive, why they do not engage in helping with executions. When the underlying act is about harm to another, harm reduction models simply do not work. And it is critically important that no one in a health professional engage in that.
The second thing that the American Psychological Association really needs to do is, I think, in particular, revise its ethical standards to be the highest possible standards. The weakening in the standards was utterly unconscionable, and the time now is to really say that the American Psychological Association needs to lead in what the standards should be to be the absolute strongest and the best.
I want to talk about why it matters for people who have not particularly engaged in this issue. In the healing profession, we can never be silent witnesses to human rights violations and abuses of other people. I work for an organization that is both about people in the health professions and about human rights. And human rights is ultimately about the inherent dignity and equality of everyone. It is not about torture. It’s not about corruption. It’s not about self-aggrandizement. It is about that inherent respect for everyone.
Which brings me to the third point, which is really justice for the victims. We’ve mentioned Abu Ghraib today. We’ve mentioned the black sites run by the CIA. We’ve mentioned Guantánamo. And of course there’s also Bagram Air Force Base, where so much of this torture happened. In Guantánamo Bay alone, 780 men and boys, children in their early teens, have gone through Guantánamo Bay. And every one of them, including those who have been cleared for release and released, have been denied any access to justice for what happened to them. And to be absolutely clear, Guantánamo Bay is a rights-free zone. It remains a rights-free zone. And the interrogations that happened there are unlawful because the entire system of detention in Guantánamo Bay is unlawful.
In human rights, it is absolutely clear that torture is not just completely prohibited, along with cruel and inhuman, degrading treatment and punishment, but there is an imperative of all states to investigate and prosecute those responsible for torture. That’s how strong the prohibition is. And yet, we have this language about moving forward, recognizing the circumstances in which this happened, people being patriots, the defense of their engaging in torture. What that sends is a message of, "Yes, we know it’s unlawful. Yes, we know it’s absolutely prohibited. But, wink wink, when you need to, you can get away with it. And the next time it has to happen, you’ll get away with it again." That is not the United States that I want to live in. It’s not a world I want to live in. I want a world in which people’s dignity and equality is what is valued, and when those who abuse their power use their power to harm people, that they are held accountable. It’s the only way we will create a truly just world. Thank you.
BRAD OLSON: You all know about Roy Eidelson’s writings, and you’ve probably seen his videos, and he even has a political cartoon. I’m hoping he’s going to do more of that. And so, Roy Eidelson.
ROY EIDELSON: Two hundred years ago, Mary Shelley wrote a novel about a young doctor who pursues a reckless path of science unmoored from values and ambition unrestrained by conscience. Dr. Frankenstein brings to life a hideous monster, made of body parts collected from slaughterhouses, dissecting rooms and graveyards. And it does not end well. In certain ways, and not alone, over a decade ago, the leaders of the American Psychological Association also unleashed a monster, and for much of the same reason—the seemingly unbridled pursuit of greater power, influence and prestige. And as we know, this, too, has not turned out well at all.
The damage was first apparent in the anguished cries from the dark cells of CIA black sites in Guantánamo Bay, and it has radiated from there, eating away at our once proud profession. Human rights and psychology’s "do no harm" ethics go hand in hand, but both are fragile, and only one can protect the other. After 9/11, the APA may not have been able to single-handedly stop the government’s bull rush toward brutality, but it didn’t have to feed the beast. In painful and indisputable detail, the long-awaited Hoffman Report has carefully documented the APA’s collusion with the Department of Defense in support of operations profoundly at odds with our profession’s respect for human dignity. Yet, in recent days, and perhaps not surprisingly, we’ve witnessed a concerted effort by some to discredit the Hoffman Report, and to thereby resurrect the wobbling reputations of the colluders it has named. Among the defenses now being offered is a familiar one: "We must not forget the context of the times," they say.
Well, if those seeking to escape accountability want us to recall the context, let’s do just that. For example, picture the White House Rose Garden almost a decade ago. That morning, a reporter asked a question about torture, in light of the Supreme Court’s Hamdan decision. And this was President Bush’s response: quote, "The Supreme Court’s ... said that we must conduct ourselves under the Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, and that Common Article ... says that, you know, there will be no outrages upon human dignity. That’s like—it’s very vague. What does that mean, 'outrages upon human dignity'? That’s a statement that is wide open to interpretation." That’s an example of the context, plain and simple, in which APA leaders locked arms with the Pentagon and CIA, and embraced our government’s abusive interrogation program.
According to reliable accounts, years ago, peace activist Daniel Berrigan gave the world’s shortest commencement speech—only seven words—to a graduating high school class in New York City. What he said was this: "Know where you stand, and stand there." I feel very thankful to everyone who has helped us reach this crucial moment of truth, this fork in the road together. And I look forward to working together to overcome the obstacles and challenges that undoubtedly still lie ahead. As we do so, let’s continue to know where to stand, and stand there. Thank you.
ALICE LOCICERO: My name is Alice Locicero. I live in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I’m a clinical psychologist, and I have taught, trained, supervised thousands of psychology students. I personally would like psychologists completely out of the military. I’d like us to end recruiting. I find it very disturbing that a high percentage of the recruiters at APA conventions are military and security agencies. I’ve also been very interested with some of my colleagues over the inconsistencies within APA regarding psychologists working in military settings and military psychologists. Just to be really clear, 7 percent of psychologists are paid completely by the Department of Defense and 5 percent by the Veterans Administration.
The American Psychological Association in recent years has been very, very active in encouraging students to become military psychologists. They have advocated for huge signing bonuses. The internship salaries are enormous for military psychologists. And at the same time, what I’ve learned—some of my colleagues and I have done some studies, and what we’ve learned is that clinical psychology doctoral students are not—by and large, not being taught anything about ethics in military settings. And they’re also not being taught how to deal with conflict between—what to do if you’re given an order that is to do something that’s unethical. And they’re not being taught anything about the international treaties and how those might guide psychologists, provide guidance if they were given in order that was unethical.
I would say very quickly that if you’re a military psychologist, your allegiances are often split. And just to keep perspective on size and budget, the American Psychological Association budget for 2014 was $112 million. The Department of Defense budget was over $500 billion, and that’s without special allocations. It’s an order of magnitude of about one to 4,000. So, you know, when we think about doing moral leadership, which is what I understand people here are doing, it’s a big job, and it really requires a lot of inspiration. Thank you.
DEBORAH POPOWSKI: My name is Deborah Popowski. I’m an attorney. I’m a human rights lawyer. I teach human rights at Harvard Law School. This movement and this moment is pivotal, not only for psychology, but for the entire movement of accountability and against torture and for justice and, I think, for this country.
As I was saying, I hitched my wagon to you because I saw that you were visionary, and I thought you were effective—and I’m glad to know that I was right—but also because as a student of—a scholar of transitional justice and torture accountability and post-torture moments, I saw that what you were doing made sense. I’m from Argentina originally. I’m the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. So the story of medicalized torture is something that I grew up learning about. And the idea that you need to wrestle with the professions as a key component to ending and to preventing torture just made sense.
So I came here today because I was hoping to see history being made. When I tell my fellow advocates, other attorneys, other human rights lawyers what is on the table on the vote tomorrow and the enormous achievements that you all have been able to achieve, people are starstruck. And I think that you just need to know that you have our—that all eyes are on you, and you have—a lot of hope is with you. So I hope that you will do that, that you will pass the proposal.
And also, to the question—a gentleman earlier said, "Why bother?" And we talked about why bother with the APA, and there’s a lot of talk about the profession, which I think makes a lot of sense. But I would say if you’re not doing it for the profession, do it for the people who were tortured. There are men who have long been released whose lives are still devastated, some men who cannot seek mental help because of the sense of betrayal of psychologists, and their understanding and their knowledge of the role of psychologists. And that is wreaking havoc on them and their family. So, I would say, do it for them, and stay in the fight for them and for their families. And then, also, really, as you move forward with this fight, think about what else we all can do to help repair the harm that goes beyond reforming these codes and beyond the policies, and also how we can bring their stories, their presence. I mean, I wish Omar Khadr could be here today or tomorrow speaking to the council about his story.
BEN DAVIS: My name’s Ben Davis. I’m a law professor in Toledo, Ohio. I was teaching a class on 9/11 down in Fort Worth, Texas, which is where the American Airlines hub is. I had students who had families on planes, who were pilots, who ran out of class. It was a dispute resolution class. They were very troubled, worried, obviously, about what happened to their family members. I had the choice as a professor to cancel the class in the middle of this, but I got this idea in my head to tell the students, "OK, in the book today, we talk about how do you negotiate with Middle Eastern terrorists, and now you’ve got to go talk to George Bush and advise him on what he should do. And we’re all under the emotion of 9/11 here."
And various people wanted to beat people up and all that stuff, but I was always struck by this older student who was a Navy veteran, who said, "The first thing we have to do is figure out what our values are, and then we can decide on the kind of strategy that we want to take." And the thing that I think that has been very unfortunate with all this since that day was that that first step of actually looking at what are our American values was not taken, in the panic that these people who were running the government had. And the dark side always shows its face quickly then, and they went down that path.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Ben Davis of the University of Toledo College of Law and others speaking at a town hall meeting here in Toronto, Canada, last night, hosted by Psychologists for Social Responsibility. Today, the American Psychological Association, that’s the largest association of psychologists in the world—over a 130,000 of them—their Council of Representatives is scheduled to vote on a resolution to bar psychologists from participating in national security interrogations. The discussion has just commenced as we broadcast this program. You can get an update at democracynow.org through the day.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, the Republican presidential debate. Stay with us.
Headlines:
Republicans Face Off in First Debate of 2016 Election Season
Ten leading Republican presidential candidates faced off in the first debate of the 2016 presidential election Thursday night. The main topics of the prime-time debate included immigration, abortion, the self-proclaimed Islamic State and the U.S. healthcare system. During the debate, front-runner Donald Trump stood by earlier statements that the Mexican government was sending the "bad ones over."
Donald Trump: "People that I deal with, that I talk to, they say this is what’s happening, because our leaders are stupid, our politicians are stupid. And the Mexican government is much smarter, much sharper, much more cunning. And they send the bad ones over because they don’t want to pay for them. They don’t want to take care of them. Why should they, when the stupid leaders of the United States will do it for them? And that’s what’s happening, whether you like it or not."
Debate moderator Megyn Kelly asked Donald Trump about his comments calling women "fat pigs," "dogs," "slobs" and "disgusting animals." You’ll hear his response later in the broadcast. Meanwhile, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul got into a heated argument over NSA domestic surveillance.
Sen. Rand Paul: "And I’m proud of standing for the Bill of Rights, and I will continue to stand for the Bill of Rights."
Gov. Chris Christie: "And — and, Megyn? Megyn, that’s a — that, you know, that’s a completely ridiculous answer: 'I want to collect more records from terrorists, but less records from other people.' How are you supposed to know, Megyn?"
Sen. Paul: "Use the Fourth Amendment!"
Gov. Chris Christie: "What are you supposed to…"
Sen. Paul: "Use the Fourth Amendment!"
Gov. Chris Christie: "How are you supposed to — no, I’ll tell you how you..."
Sen. Paul: "Get a warrant!"
Gov. Chris Christie: "Look, let me tell you something. You go..."
Sen. Paul: "Get a judge to sign the warrant."
Some analysts described Thursday’s debate as the Roger Ailes primary since the head of Fox News had so much say about who participated in the prime-time event. Seven other Republican presidential candidates who didn’t make the cut participated in another debate earlier in the evening. Fox News said it calculated its top 10 list by averaging five national polls, a process which came under fire from polling agencies earlier this week. We’ll have more on the Republican debate later in the broadcast.
NY Senator Chuck Schumer Announces Opposition to Iran Nuclear Deal
In news from Washington, New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer has announced he will oppose the Iran nuclear deal. Schumer is the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate and one of the leading Jewish voices there. Some fear his dissent could pave the way for more Democrats to oppose the deal. His announcement comes one day after President Obama made his case for the agreement by comparing those who oppose the deal to those who supported the invasion of Iraq. Proponents of the agreement told The New York Times Thursday they still likely have enough votes to uphold a presidential veto if the measure is blocked by Congress.
Ferguson Prepares for 1-Year Commemoration of Michael Brown Death
Activists and religious leaders from across the country are heading to Ferguson, Missouri, this weekend to commemorate the death of Michael Brown, an unarmed African-American teenager who was fatally shot by white police officer Darren Wilson one year ago Sunday. Michael Brown’s body lay in the street for more than four hours after the shooting. His death and the grand jury’s decision not to indict Officer Wilson led to widespread protests in Ferguson and major U.S. cities, and became a catalyst for the Black Lives Matter movement. The weekend’s events will include marches and a moment of silence midday Sunday.
Saudi Arabia: Attack at Mosque Kills 15, ISIL Claims Responsibility
In news from Saudi Arabia, militants from the self-proclaimed Islamic State have claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack that killed at least 15 people, including a dozen Saudi security personnel, Thursday at a mosque. It is the third attack since May for which ISIL militants have claimed responsibility.
Afghanistan: Explosion Kills 8, Wounds 100s Near Kabul Army Base
Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, an explosion near an Afghan army base killed at least eight people and wounded hundreds in the capital city Kabul this morning. The attack comes as the United Nations is reporting civilian casualties in Afghanistan are at "record-high levels" this year. A local resident spoke out after the blast.
Mohammad Shikib: "When the blast happened, my children started screaming. All the windows of my house were blown out. My hand was injured. The blast was so powerful."
Pakistan: 2 U.S. Drone Strikes Kill 4 Alleged Militants in Waziristan
In Pakistan, officials say two U.S. drone strikes killed at least four alleged militants Thursday. The strikes hit a tribal region of North Waziristan bordering Afghanistan where Pakistan’s military has been carrying out an offensive for over a year.
Bangladesh: Secularist Blogger Hacked to Death in Capital Dhaka
In news from Bangladesh, a blogger who expressed secular views has been hacked to death in the capital city Dhaka. Niloy Neel is the fourth blogger to be killed this year, allegedly by suspected Islamist militants. No one has been charged in any of the four attacks.
Jon Stewart Bids Farewell to "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central
And Jon Stewart, known as "the most trusted name in fake news," bid farewell to "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central Thursday night after 16 years. The satirical news show transformed the media landscape, revealing and reveling in the hypocrisies of politicians and their media bedfellows. Thursday night, Stewart said goodbye to his viewers, warning the audience not to believe misinformation.
Jon Stewart: "So I say to you tonight, friends, the best defense against bullsh*t is vigilance. So if you smell something, say something."
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