From: Andrew Phelps <dis_course@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [PsySR-humanrights] Re history of CIA expertise on interrogation
To: psysr-humanrights@googlegroups.com
Date: Saturday, April 9, 2011, 9:27 PM
Tuv, Srp, et al.:
Tuv wrote:
Really, why should the CIA have an interrogation program, except to debrief agents, assets, defectors, etc.
Srp wrote:
I have heard two senior interrogation trainers, one who set up a SERE school, say they have seen no evidence that CIA had an interrogation training program. Research and opinions are not tantamount to a training program.
I find each of your responses "for real." However, what I keep explaining, based on my "lived experience," is that the CIA is built around an anthropological construct which is known as the "national security culture." The logic of who does what, and why, and how, and when, and where, generally follows from the imperatives of the culture, as it engages "national security" at a given period. The idea that it's the "intelligence business" constantly leads to confusion, which is what you are attempting to note and clear up.
This list would become clearer, if more people here considered the "interface" between conventional psychology (e.g., the ethics and categorical practices of Kant) and conventional anthropology (e.g., Boas, Mead and Bateson) and where truth and torture actually "fit." Until then, questions like Larry James being/not being an advisor to the White House won't get grounded very easily.
And, Srp and Tuv, you're among the "very best," so I expect you will find way(s) to move forward the quest for transparency in the "expertise on interrogation" system of ritual behaviors.
Best
Andrew