Predators, Reapers, and Psychology’s Do-No-Harm Ethics


General Atomics Reaper by public domain

Below
are my remarks as part of a panel presentation on psychology and weaponized
drones at the American Psychological Association Annual Convention in
Washington, DC last week. -- RJE

********

Because
drone warfare has profound psychological effects on many different levels, it
raises critical questions for members of our profession, including questions
about the do-no-harm ethics of psychologists' participation in drone-related operations and research.
That's what I'd like to briefly discuss this morning.

Last
year Taylor Owen, research director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at
Columbia University, summarized certain aspects of the psychological impact of
drones this way:

"Day
and night, you hear a constant buzzing in the sky. Like a lawnmower. You know
that this flying robot is watching everything you do. You can always hear it.
Sometimes, it fires missiles into your village. You are told the robot is
targeting extremists, but its missiles have killed family, friends, and
neighbours. So, your behaviour changes: you stop going out, you stop
congregating in public, and you likely start hating the country that controls
the flying robot."

Owen's
description is consistent with the findings from the detailed 2013 Stanford/NYU
Living Under Drones report examining U.S. drone policy. That report
states: "Their presence terrorises men, women, and children, giving rise
to anxiety and psychological trauma among civilian
communities. Those living under drones have to face the constant worry that a
deadly strike may be fired at any moment, and the knowledge that they are
powerless to protect themselves." And Kat Craig, Legal Director at
Reprieve, has said, "These findings represent further evidence that drones
not only kill innocent civilians, but that their use amounts to a form of
psychological torture and collective punishment."

It's
important to recognize that even as U.S. drone proponents boast of the surgical
precision of these instruments of war -- including in regions where no war has
been declared -- these same advocates offer no comment on the psychological
devastation caused by "living under drones." These well documented
harmful effects call into question any comfortable claim that drone warfare
meets law-of-war requirements regarding proportionality and distinction, since
the victims number many more than those killed or physically injured by drone
attacks.

As
described in their 2013 report titled Will I Be Next, Amnesty
International rejects the view of the U.S. government that
"international law allows it to engage in a global and pervasive armed
conflict against a diffuse network of non-state actors" and that "it
is lawful to kill individuals anywhere in the world at any time, whenever the
USA deems appropriate." Amnesty is not alone in arguing that such state
practices "fundamentally undermine crucial human rights protections that
have been painstakingly developed over more than a century of international
law-making."

This
international law context should matter to all of us here this morning,
especially since the American Psychological Association remains an accredited
nongovernmental organization (NGO) at the United Nations. We can't limit
ourselves to the dim view expressed several years ago by a past-president of
the APA, Gerald Koocher, who remarkably wrote: "I have zero interest in
entangling APA with the nebulous, toothless, contradictory, and obfuscatory
treaties that comprise 'international law.'"

But
those words are not the only troubling evidence that the APA leadership does
not seem particularly interested in engaging with thorny ethical issues that
could put the Association at odds with U.S. government policies. Indeed, as
another telling example, 10 months ago the president-elect (Brad
Olson) of APA's Division 48 -- the peace psychology division -- wrote to
Stephen Behnke, the director of APA's Ethics Office, to request timely
guidance regarding how the APA Ethics Code addresses four hypothetical
drone-related scenarios:

First,
according to the Code, is it permissible for a psychologist to directly operate
or otherwise be involved in the operation of a weaponized drone?

Second,
is it permissible for a psychologist to work as an intelligence consultant involved in the targeting of drone strikes?

Third,
is it permissible for a psychologist to participate in programs designed to
select drone operators or train them in such a way as to overcome the
natural psychological aversion to killing other people?

And
fourth, is it permissible for a psychologist to assist in promoting public
support for the use of weaponized drones by misrepresenting evidence of
the psychological harms that result from such attacks?

Other
ethically fraught scenarios can be imagined as well. Regrettably, aside from
acknowledging receipt of the letter, Dr. Behnke has never responded to
this October 2013 inquiry from the peace psychology division. The silence from
the Ethics Office is disturbing. It suggests that the APA leadership continues
to believe that retaining its proverbial "seat at the table" is more
important than examining potentially controversial and ethically fraught issues
that call into question the Association's carefully nurtured connections with
the Department of Defense and the CIA.

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