American psychopaths = American shrinks = stark raving dangerously insane nation

It took a few decades but the powers-that-be succeeded into turning a great nation into a modern day madhouse whose inmates lay down the law and citizens submit without as much as a whimper.

CJ Werleman writing at MiddleEastEye
American psychopaths: The shrinks who assisted in torture  

Psychologists changed their profession’s ethics code to allow torture to continue and, in turn, were showered with government largesse

Any historical examination of America in the first decade post-9/11 is an examination of a country that has completely lost its mind. Wars were launched against those who didn’t attack the US, and stronger relationships were built with those who aided and abetted the September 11 attacks.

Like a drunk in a dark alley trying to herd stray cats, the Bush administration did more to curtail the freedom of its citizens than those it determined to be an existential threat. The US acted before it was able to think. It dropped 500lb bombs on Afghani villages, Iraqi neighbourhoods, and terrorised children everywhere from Yemen to the border regions of Pakistan with the incessant buzzing sound of the Predator drone.

Not long after the bombing campaign against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan began, intelligence assessments estimated Bin Laden’s terror group to have a headcount of roughly 200. Today, militants from the Islamic State (IS) number in the tens of thousands and counting. In other words, our terror created more terrorists.

In the pursuit of shadows, we stripped away the rights of those we kidnapped and tortured. We became psychopaths, and now a new report shows the Bush administration co-opted those who are in the business of determining psychopathic disorders: the American Psychological Association (APA).

“Our mission is to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people’s lives,” reads the mission statement on APA’s website.

But “improving lives” is not what the APA did during the Bush presidency.

On Friday, investigative journalist James Risen of The New York Times disclosed a 542-page report that illuminates how members of the American Psychological Association colluded with the CIA to blunt and counter dissent with the intelligence agency over the application of torture, and then lied and covered up their..........