Nexus - 1601 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

Law", which is based on the USA Patriot Act. While criminalisation of political expression and social protest signals an alarming danger to the peace and human rights secured by Salvadorans since the brutal 12-year civil war, the US government publicly supports the Salvadoran government and the passage of the draconian anti-terrorism law that took effect in October 2006. Salvadorans, however, maintain that fighting for water is a right, not a crime. When news reports in 2005 exposed the fact that _ protest signals an alarming danger to the peace and human psychologists were working with the US military and the rights secured by Salvadorans since the brutal 12-year civil CIA to develop brutal interrogation methods, American war, the US government publicly supports the Salvadoran Psychological Association (APA) leaders assembled a task — government and the passage of the draconian anti-terrorism force to examine the issue. After just two days of law that took effect in October 2006. Salvadorans, however, deliberations, the 10-member task force concluded that —_ maintain that fighting for water is a right, not a crime. psychologists were playing a "valuable and ethical role" in assisting the military. A high level of secrecy surrounding 12. Bush Profiteers Collect Billions From "No Child the task force prohibited disclosure of the proceedings andof — Left Behind" members and attendees. It wasn't until a year later that the President Bush's first senior education adviser Sandy membership was finally published on Salon.com, revealing _ Kress, the architect of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), has that six of nine voting members were from the military and turned the program, which has consistently proven intelligence agencies with direct disastrous in the realm of education, into connections to interrogations at a huge success in the realm of corporate Guantanamo and CIA black sites that profiteering. After ushering NCLB operate outside of the Geneva through the US House of Representatives Conventions. in 2001 with no public hearings, Kress The Psychological Ethics and National ...psychologists were went from lawmaker, turning on spigots Security (PENS) task force was ° . of federal funds, to lobbyist, tapping into assembled in response to growing not only taking part in those billions of dollars in federal funds evidence that psychologists were not procedures that have for private investors well connected to only taking part in procedures that have . the Bush administration. shocked humanity around the world, but shocked humanity A statute that once promised equal were in charge of designing those brutal access to public education to millions of tactics and training interrogators in those around the world, American children now instead promises techniques. but were in charge billions of dollars in profits to corporate Two psychologists in particular clients through dubious processes of played a central role: James Elmer testing and assessment and Mitchell, who was contracted to the "supplemental educational CIA, and his colleague Bruce services". Jessen. Both worked in the NCLB, the Business Roundtable's classified military training program revision of Lyndon Johnson's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Elementary and Secondary Escape (SERE), which conditions Education Act (ESEA), created a soldiers to endure captivity in "high-stakes testing" system through enemy hands. In a very quasi- which the private sector could scientific manner, Mitchell and siphon federal education funds. The Jessen reverse-engineered the tactics result has been windfall corporate inflicted on SERE trainees for use profit. What was once a cottage on detainees in the "global war on terror". industry has become a corporate giant. "Millions of dollars Meanwhile, it is increasingly clear that the US has are being spent," says Jack Jennings, director of the Center sacrificed its conscience and its global image for tactics that on Education Policy, "and nobody knows what's happening." are at best ineffective. of designing those brutal tactics and training interrogators in those techniques. ...psychologists were not only taking part in procedures that have - shocked humanity around the world, of designing those brutal tactics and training interrogators in those techniques. 13. Tracking Billions of Dollars Lost in Iraq Beginning in April 2003, one month after the invasion of Iraq, and continuing for little more than a year, the US Federal Reserve shipped $12 billion in US currency to Iraq. The US military delivered the bank notes to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), to be dispensed for Iraqi reconstruction. At least $9 billion is unaccounted for due to a complete lack of oversight. The initial $20 million came exclusively from Iraqi assets that had been frozen in US banks since the first Gulf War in 1990. Subsequent airlifts of cash included billions from Iraqi oil revenues formerly controlled by the United Nations. 11. El Salvador's Water Privatisation and the Global War on Terror Salvadoran police violently captured community leaders and residents at a July 2007 demonstration against the privatisation of El Salvador's water supply and distribution systems. Close-range shooting of rubber bullets and tear gas was used against community members for protesting the rising cost and the diminishing access and quality of local water under privatisation. Fourteen were arrested and charged with terrorism—a charge that can hold a 60-year prison sentence under El Salvador's new "Anti-terrorism NEXUS ¢ 15 10. APA Complicit in CIA-Approved Torture but were in charge DECEMBER 2008 — JANUARY 2009 www.nexusmagazine.com