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American Empire Project
A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror
A startling exposé of the CIA's development and spread of psychological torture, from the Cold War to Abu Ghraib and beyond
In this revelatory account of the CIA's secret, fifty-year effort to develop new forms of torture, historian Alfred W. McCoy uncovers the deep, disturbing roots of recent scandals at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo. Far from aberrations, as the White House has claimed, A Question of Torture shows that these abuses are the product of a long-standing covert program of interrogation.
Developed at the cost of billions of dollars, the CIA's method combined "sensory deprivation" and "self-inflicted pain" to create a revolutionary psychological approach--the first innovation in torture in centuries. The simple techniques--involving isolation, hooding, hours of standing, extremes of hot and cold, and manipulation of time--constitute an all-out assault on the victim's senses, destroying the basis of personal identity. McCoy follows the years of research--which, he reveals, compromised universities and the U.S. Army--and the method's dissemination, from Vietnam through Iran to Central America. He traces how after 9/11 torture became Washington's weapon of choice in both the CIA's global prisons and in "torture-friendly" countries to which detainees are dispatched. Finally McCoy argues that information extracted by coercion is worthless, making a case for the legal approach favored by the FBI.
Scrupulously documented and grippingly told, A Question of Torture is a devastating indictment of inhumane practices that have spread throughout the intelligence system, damaging American's laws, military, and international standing.
In this revelatory account of the CIA's secret, fifty-year effort to develop new forms of torture, historian Alfred W. McCoy uncovers the deep, disturbing roots of recent scandals at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo. Far from aberrations, as the White House has claimed, A Question of Torture shows that these abuses are the product of a long-standing covert program of interrogation.
Developed at the cost of billions of dollars, the CIA's method combined "sensory deprivation" and "self-inflicted pain" to create a revolutionary psychological approach--the first innovation in torture in centuries. The simple techniques--involving isolation, hooding, hours of standing, extremes of hot and cold, and manipulation of time--constitute an all-out assault on the victim's senses, destroying the basis of personal identity. McCoy follows the years of research--which, he reveals, compromised universities and the U.S. Army--and the method's dissemination, from Vietnam through Iran to Central America. He traces how after 9/11 torture became Washington's weapon of choice in both the CIA's global prisons and in "torture-friendly" countries to which detainees are dispatched. Finally McCoy argues that information extracted by coercion is worthless, making a case for the legal approach favored by the FBI.
Scrupulously documented and grippingly told, A Question of Torture is a devastating indictment of inhumane practices that have spread throughout the intelligence system, damaging American's laws, military, and international standing.
290 pages, Hardcover
First published January 10, 2006
About the author
Alfred W. McCoy
33 books302 followersDr Alfred W. McCoy is professor of SE Asian History at the U. of Wisconsin at Madison where he also serves as director of the Center for SE Asian Studies, a federally-funded National Resource Center. He's spent the past quarter-century writing about the politics & history of the opium trade. In addition to publications, he serves as a correspondent for the Observatoire Geopolitique des Drogues in Paris & was plenary speaker at their '92 conference in Paris sponsored by the European Community. In '93, he presented a paper on the Mafia & the Asian heroin trade at the Conference in Honor of Giovanni Falcone in Palermo, Sicily. In 3/96, he was the plenary speaker at the 7th International Conference on Drug Harm Reduction in Hobart, Australia. He's served as expert witness & consultant to the Canadian Commission of Inquiry into the Non-Medical use of Drugs, the Australian Royal Commission of Inquiry into Drugs, the Minister of Administrative Services, Victoria State Parliament, & the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Drug Enforcement Policy & Support in the Office of the US Secretary of Defense. Recently, he worked as consultant & commentator for a tv documentary on the global heroin traffic produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, accompanying the crew to locations in Burma, Thailand, Vietnam & Laos.
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May 29, 2023
TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE
Abu Ghraib, immagine tristemente celebre, rimbalzata ovunque. Ma mai abbastanza.
Il primo capitolo si chiama “duemila anni di tortura” e già la dice lunga su questa pratica umana molto inumana.
Però, fin qui siamo nell’universalmente noto.
Il secondo capitolo ha un titolo ancora più inquietante: “il controllo della mente”.
È forse con il nazismo che la tortura diventa una scienza: o meglio, il risultato di varie scienze (medica, chirurgica, neurochirurgica, psicologica, psichiatrica, comportamentale, cognitiva…).
L’URSS dette presto il suo valido contributo al progresso di questa infame scienza.
Se la tortura è scontata nelle dittature, è tuttavia quasi impossibile trovare chi non l’abbia usata nelle democrazie.
A partire dal secondo dopoguerra, intensificando negli anni ’50 e ’60, le democrazie occidentali, gli USA in testa, con l’aiuto dell’insospettabile Canada [inimmaginabile almeno per me] e dell’UK, impegnano mezzi e uomini a profusione, tra l’altro coinvolgendo una buona parte degli scienziati nazisti.
Mescalina, dietilamide dell’acido lisergico (LSD), delta-9-tetraidrocannabinolo (THC della marijuana), tiopentale sodico (presunto siero della verità), ipnosi, scosse elettriche… Progetti dai nomi buffi come Paperclip, Bluebird, Artichoke, che in realtà erano vere e proprie operazioni sotto copertura… Soggetti volontari, per lo più a pagamento (proprio come nella sperimentazione medica), e sempre più numerosi soggetti non volontari, cosiddetti “spendibili”, nel senso di perdibili, più esplicitamente, che potevano essere sacrificati, li si poteva uccidere o lasciar morire. Si cominciò con i prigionieri nordcoreani. Con spie, traditori e doppiogiochisti, o presunti tali.
La prigione di Guantanamo sull’isola di Cuba, che ha permessa a Bush & Co. di giustificare la tortura che qui viene regolarmente praticata in quanto extraterritoriale, non su suolo USA.
Ma anche cose più bizzarre come: drogare bevande durante una festa a New York, pagare prostitute per somministrare LSD ai clienti davanti alle telecamere nascoste dalla CIA in un covo di San Francisco, somministrare allucinogeni a bambini durante un campo estivo.
I migliori risultati vengono dagli studi sulla deprivazione sensoriale compiuti alla McGill University di Montreal dal professor Donald O. Hebb (tuttora esiste un premio che porta il suo nome dedicato agli scienziati canadesi).
Dalla deprivazione sensoriale al dolore autoinflitto il passo è breve.
Tutti questi studi e ricerche ed esperimenti confluirono in un manuale (Kubark) che per quaranta anni a partire dal 1963 ha definito i metodi d’interrogatorio e addestramento della CIA nel Terzo Mondo.
Il poster del film documentario di Alex Gibney “Taxi To The Dark Side” del 2007, l’anno dopo premiato con l’Oscar
Fra i tentativi sempre più insistiti nelle democrazie occidentali è quello di legalizzarla come ‘eccezione’ in nome della molto sbandierata sicurezza nazionale. Manovra che è una contraddizione perché anticipa la pena per crimini il cui riconoscimento dipende dal risultato della tortura stessa.
La contraddizione appare doppia quando si apprende che la tortura selettiva, praticata su numeri a centinaia o qualche migliaio, porta risultati minimi in termini di intelligence.
Si ottengono informazioni più utili applicandola su numeri ben più cospicui: le decine di migliaia come in Vietnam (l’operazione Phoenix) o le centinaia di migliaia come fecero i francesi ad Algeri, che vinsero la battaglia di Algeri, ma persero la guerra d’Algeria.
Proprio come gli US persero la guerra del Vietnam nonostante le ventimila vittime della tortura.
E cosa succede anche quando i risultati di intelligence sono più interessanti? Le guerre si perdono ugualmente – si devono far sparire migliaia di vittime, anche dopo che hanno ‘confessato’ – per ovvia reazione si allarga a dismisura il numero dei nemici (futuri soggetti da torturare?).
Un’immagine da “Taxi To The Dark Side” di Alex Gibney, del 2007: Alfred McCoy compare nel film, è intervistato, la postfazione del suo libro, ‘La legalizzazione della tortura’, sembra quasi un pezzo di sceneggiatura, Gibney si è basato sulle ricerche di McCoy, più che ispirato.
Non è una punizione, si obietta, è solo uno sgradevole ma indispensabile strumento d’indagine, si puntualizza: si discute sulla sua ammissibilità, e i sondaggi adesso dicono che nel sentimento dominante il ‘nemico’ merita comunque il massimo della pena.
È facile fare dell’horror, più arduo descrivere seriamente l’orrore, non nascondendo nulla della tortura e della malvagità umana che la pervade.
“dio siamo noi” rispondevano i torturatori della dittatura argentina quando le persone che loro massacravano urlavano ‘dio aiutami!’
In US le strutture democratiche coesistono con la violenza più strettamente e con limiti più flessibili che in Europa (per esempio, la pena di morte, la vendita libera delle armi). È probabilmente per questo che la tortura ‘eccezionale’ si trasforma in storytelling eroico al cinema e televisione (basta prendere serial come NYPD Blue o 24). Ma la realtà va ben oltre: due psicologi hanno appaltato le torture della CIA guadagnando 80 milioni di dollari!
Il genocidio non è una semplice somma di uccisioni, e la tortura non è solo un’aggressione moltiplicata: è parte del male.
Un’immagine dal film “Zero Dark Thirty” di Kathryn Bigelow, la prima e unica donna ad aver vinto l’Oscar come miglior regista, nel 2010 col film “The Hurt Locker”.
Abu Ghraib, immagine tristemente celebre, rimbalzata ovunque. Ma mai abbastanza.
Il primo capitolo si chiama “duemila anni di tortura” e già la dice lunga su questa pratica umana molto inumana.
Però, fin qui siamo nell’universalmente noto.
Il secondo capitolo ha un titolo ancora più inquietante: “il controllo della mente”.
È forse con il nazismo che la tortura diventa una scienza: o meglio, il risultato di varie scienze (medica, chirurgica, neurochirurgica, psicologica, psichiatrica, comportamentale, cognitiva…).
L’URSS dette presto il suo valido contributo al progresso di questa infame scienza.
Se la tortura è scontata nelle dittature, è tuttavia quasi impossibile trovare chi non l’abbia usata nelle democrazie.
A partire dal secondo dopoguerra, intensificando negli anni ’50 e ’60, le democrazie occidentali, gli USA in testa, con l’aiuto dell’insospettabile Canada [inimmaginabile almeno per me] e dell’UK, impegnano mezzi e uomini a profusione, tra l’altro coinvolgendo una buona parte degli scienziati nazisti.
Mescalina, dietilamide dell’acido lisergico (LSD), delta-9-tetraidrocannabinolo (THC della marijuana), tiopentale sodico (presunto siero della verità), ipnosi, scosse elettriche… Progetti dai nomi buffi come Paperclip, Bluebird, Artichoke, che in realtà erano vere e proprie operazioni sotto copertura… Soggetti volontari, per lo più a pagamento (proprio come nella sperimentazione medica), e sempre più numerosi soggetti non volontari, cosiddetti “spendibili”, nel senso di perdibili, più esplicitamente, che potevano essere sacrificati, li si poteva uccidere o lasciar morire. Si cominciò con i prigionieri nordcoreani. Con spie, traditori e doppiogiochisti, o presunti tali.
La prigione di Guantanamo sull’isola di Cuba, che ha permessa a Bush & Co. di giustificare la tortura che qui viene regolarmente praticata in quanto extraterritoriale, non su suolo USA.
Ma anche cose più bizzarre come: drogare bevande durante una festa a New York, pagare prostitute per somministrare LSD ai clienti davanti alle telecamere nascoste dalla CIA in un covo di San Francisco, somministrare allucinogeni a bambini durante un campo estivo.
I migliori risultati vengono dagli studi sulla deprivazione sensoriale compiuti alla McGill University di Montreal dal professor Donald O. Hebb (tuttora esiste un premio che porta il suo nome dedicato agli scienziati canadesi).
Dalla deprivazione sensoriale al dolore autoinflitto il passo è breve.
Tutti questi studi e ricerche ed esperimenti confluirono in un manuale (Kubark) che per quaranta anni a partire dal 1963 ha definito i metodi d’interrogatorio e addestramento della CIA nel Terzo Mondo.
Il poster del film documentario di Alex Gibney “Taxi To The Dark Side” del 2007, l’anno dopo premiato con l’Oscar
Fra i tentativi sempre più insistiti nelle democrazie occidentali è quello di legalizzarla come ‘eccezione’ in nome della molto sbandierata sicurezza nazionale. Manovra che è una contraddizione perché anticipa la pena per crimini il cui riconoscimento dipende dal risultato della tortura stessa.
La contraddizione appare doppia quando si apprende che la tortura selettiva, praticata su numeri a centinaia o qualche migliaio, porta risultati minimi in termini di intelligence.
Si ottengono informazioni più utili applicandola su numeri ben più cospicui: le decine di migliaia come in Vietnam (l’operazione Phoenix) o le centinaia di migliaia come fecero i francesi ad Algeri, che vinsero la battaglia di Algeri, ma persero la guerra d’Algeria.
Proprio come gli US persero la guerra del Vietnam nonostante le ventimila vittime della tortura.
E cosa succede anche quando i risultati di intelligence sono più interessanti? Le guerre si perdono ugualmente – si devono far sparire migliaia di vittime, anche dopo che hanno ‘confessato’ – per ovvia reazione si allarga a dismisura il numero dei nemici (futuri soggetti da torturare?).
Un’immagine da “Taxi To The Dark Side” di Alex Gibney, del 2007: Alfred McCoy compare nel film, è intervistato, la postfazione del suo libro, ‘La legalizzazione della tortura’, sembra quasi un pezzo di sceneggiatura, Gibney si è basato sulle ricerche di McCoy, più che ispirato.
Non è una punizione, si obietta, è solo uno sgradevole ma indispensabile strumento d’indagine, si puntualizza: si discute sulla sua ammissibilità, e i sondaggi adesso dicono che nel sentimento dominante il ‘nemico’ merita comunque il massimo della pena.
È facile fare dell’horror, più arduo descrivere seriamente l’orrore, non nascondendo nulla della tortura e della malvagità umana che la pervade.
“dio siamo noi” rispondevano i torturatori della dittatura argentina quando le persone che loro massacravano urlavano ‘dio aiutami!’
In US le strutture democratiche coesistono con la violenza più strettamente e con limiti più flessibili che in Europa (per esempio, la pena di morte, la vendita libera delle armi). È probabilmente per questo che la tortura ‘eccezionale’ si trasforma in storytelling eroico al cinema e televisione (basta prendere serial come NYPD Blue o 24). Ma la realtà va ben oltre: due psicologi hanno appaltato le torture della CIA guadagnando 80 milioni di dollari!
Il genocidio non è una semplice somma di uccisioni, e la tortura non è solo un’aggressione moltiplicata: è parte del male.
Un’immagine dal film “Zero Dark Thirty” di Kathryn Bigelow, la prima e unica donna ad aver vinto l’Oscar come miglior regista, nel 2010 col film “The Hurt Locker”.
August 3, 2009
This book really spells it all out for ya. I just read it over the past two days and it's informative and enraging, but also somewhat graphic. I suppose that's to be expected though.
I didn't realize that the brand of torture used today that's so invasive and so crippling was developed 50 years ago and been in use this whole time. Absolutely disgusting and deplorable. I also didn't know that the CIA in project Phoenix in Vietnam tortured and then outright murdered 20,000 vietnamese people, and never once in that time captured a clear vietcong agent. Reminds me of a quote by one of my heroes ICE-T, "Fuck the CIA." Those assholes need to be shut down. It also clearly shows that G.W. and his cronies are all guilty of war crimes, yes, war crimes. How embarassing is that? Read this book and get to work you lazy bastards! xxoxoo
There's a good group that a friend of mine is in called Worldcantwait that fights this sort of thing.
I didn't realize that the brand of torture used today that's so invasive and so crippling was developed 50 years ago and been in use this whole time. Absolutely disgusting and deplorable. I also didn't know that the CIA in project Phoenix in Vietnam tortured and then outright murdered 20,000 vietnamese people, and never once in that time captured a clear vietcong agent. Reminds me of a quote by one of my heroes ICE-T, "Fuck the CIA." Those assholes need to be shut down. It also clearly shows that G.W. and his cronies are all guilty of war crimes, yes, war crimes. How embarassing is that? Read this book and get to work you lazy bastards! xxoxoo
There's a good group that a friend of mine is in called Worldcantwait that fights this sort of thing.
August 29, 2016
A STATE OF DEPRAVITY
Alfred McCoy wrote this short history of the use of torture by the United States in the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib scandal that erupted in 2004, which along with various other scandals relating to the CIA's extraordinary rendition program, American prison camps in Guantanamo Bay, Bagram Airbase and a number of other locations, dogged the US government for a number of years.
McCoy starts with a cursory account of Tortures lengthy pedigree in Europe and the West, before moving on to a detailed study of his period which runs from the end of the second world war to the date of publication (2006). During the Korean conflict (1950-53) there was much noise generated about the supposed effectiveness of the Communists at interrogation and "brain-washing" particular giving the performance of American prisoners. It was this sense of the Soviets/Communist states being ahead, a torture/brain washing gap if you like, that gave impetus for CIA backed research and experimentation into coercive interrogations. This became a major program despite the fact that the US authorities were well aware that Soviet/Communist interrogation techniques were crude.
There seems to have been no shortage of psychiatrists and psychologists willing to carry out experiments conducive to CIA aims (their heirs would eventually participate in assisting interrogators/torturers in Guantanamo Bay). Efforts were originally focussed on the use of drugs (mainly LSD and various "truth" serums) before psychological approaches took precedence, particularly after the Canadian Psychologist Dr Ewan Cameron's experiments relating to sensory deprivation appeared to yield promising results. Dr Cameron held his drug addled patients in conditions of extreme sensory deprivation, up to at least five weeks in one definite case, and perhaps up to a maximum of twelve weeks, causing grotesque long term psychological and physical damage. His perverse experiments were generously funded by the American Government via the CIA.
Dr Cameron's research, amongst others, coalesced into the so called Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation Handbook. This formed the basis of a 10 year training program for CIA operatives, and for forty years it was the basis of CIA practice, and overseas training programs, in a number of 3rd world countries. The main testing ground for US's new "interrogation" doctrines was Vietnam where the CIA run Phoenix program functioned with boundless impunity, going way beyond the Kubark manuals psychological torture. 20,000+ Vietnamese eventually died under its auspices, often brutally murdered after lengthy periods of horrific physical and psychological torture. From Vietnam this plague spread across the world to wherever the US felt its client regimes were under threat, particularly in Latin and Central America, where Project X (who thinks up these names?) ran from 1966-91. There was even a systematic mail order program posting out a variety of interrogation (psychological torture) manuals to members of the security forces and militaries of US client regimes.
One of the distinctions McCoy makes is that between psychological and physical torture. Clearly the psychological variety, though it doesn't leave physical marks, is - in terms of long term effects - at least as disastrous for its victims as physical torture. For those who doubt this, the testimony of a Philippine Priest, a high ranking navy officer and a student give a vivid and horrifying sense of what the reality of psychological torture is, and the long term nature of its effects.
McCoy goes on to makes a case for a lull in direct US use of torture between the end of the cold war and the start of the war on terror, though no doubt alumni of US interrogation training (especially the School of the Americas) still kept the light burning through those years. After September the 11th 2001, and with the CIA as the lead organisation in operations against Al-Qaeda and associates, incidents of torture of both types increased, culminating (at least in the public mind) with the events at Abu Ghraib. McCoy carefully makes clear that it was not a few bad apples, but orders from on high (The Whitehouse) set the scene for the depraved acts at Abu Ghraib, as well as the extraordinary rendition program, and all the rest of the sordid and grotesque acts carried out across the globe by American forces and their fellow travellers in a number of countries. The books final chapter "The Question of Torture" asks a number of questions regarding torture, and comes to the conclusion that it is generally ineffective, the circumstances in which its supporters make their strongest case (eg. Alan Dershowitz's ticking bomb) hasn't presented itself in the real world. Moreover even if the targets are limited to those identified as being important members of Al Qaeda (or the Vietcong in Vietnam, or the Bath party in Iraq) the practice will soon spread, and move from purely psychological to include physical torture. This is particularly true when the US sets against organisations that have a great deal of popular support and finds itself on the back foot. It is no coincidence that the most murderous campaign of interrogation and intelligence gathering occurred in Vietnam where the Viet Cong had a great deal of popular support.
In "A Question of Torture" Alfred McCoy has written a clear and concise history of the United States use of torture in the period from 1945-2006, how its doctrines developed, and spread via client regimes across the globe. It is a book that I'd strongly recommend to anyone who wishes to know how the leading self proclaimed Liberal Democracy behaves in reality. For UK readers I would also recommend Ian Cobains excellent Cruel Britannia: A Secret History of Torture which performs the same role vis-à-vis Britain. Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine, which cites this book, is also worth reading for its detailed account of the aforementioned Dr Cameron's experiments, as well as on its own merits.
Alfred McCoy wrote this short history of the use of torture by the United States in the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib scandal that erupted in 2004, which along with various other scandals relating to the CIA's extraordinary rendition program, American prison camps in Guantanamo Bay, Bagram Airbase and a number of other locations, dogged the US government for a number of years.
McCoy starts with a cursory account of Tortures lengthy pedigree in Europe and the West, before moving on to a detailed study of his period which runs from the end of the second world war to the date of publication (2006). During the Korean conflict (1950-53) there was much noise generated about the supposed effectiveness of the Communists at interrogation and "brain-washing" particular giving the performance of American prisoners. It was this sense of the Soviets/Communist states being ahead, a torture/brain washing gap if you like, that gave impetus for CIA backed research and experimentation into coercive interrogations. This became a major program despite the fact that the US authorities were well aware that Soviet/Communist interrogation techniques were crude.
There seems to have been no shortage of psychiatrists and psychologists willing to carry out experiments conducive to CIA aims (their heirs would eventually participate in assisting interrogators/torturers in Guantanamo Bay). Efforts were originally focussed on the use of drugs (mainly LSD and various "truth" serums) before psychological approaches took precedence, particularly after the Canadian Psychologist Dr Ewan Cameron's experiments relating to sensory deprivation appeared to yield promising results. Dr Cameron held his drug addled patients in conditions of extreme sensory deprivation, up to at least five weeks in one definite case, and perhaps up to a maximum of twelve weeks, causing grotesque long term psychological and physical damage. His perverse experiments were generously funded by the American Government via the CIA.
Dr Cameron's research, amongst others, coalesced into the so called Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation Handbook. This formed the basis of a 10 year training program for CIA operatives, and for forty years it was the basis of CIA practice, and overseas training programs, in a number of 3rd world countries. The main testing ground for US's new "interrogation" doctrines was Vietnam where the CIA run Phoenix program functioned with boundless impunity, going way beyond the Kubark manuals psychological torture. 20,000+ Vietnamese eventually died under its auspices, often brutally murdered after lengthy periods of horrific physical and psychological torture. From Vietnam this plague spread across the world to wherever the US felt its client regimes were under threat, particularly in Latin and Central America, where Project X (who thinks up these names?) ran from 1966-91. There was even a systematic mail order program posting out a variety of interrogation (psychological torture) manuals to members of the security forces and militaries of US client regimes.
One of the distinctions McCoy makes is that between psychological and physical torture. Clearly the psychological variety, though it doesn't leave physical marks, is - in terms of long term effects - at least as disastrous for its victims as physical torture. For those who doubt this, the testimony of a Philippine Priest, a high ranking navy officer and a student give a vivid and horrifying sense of what the reality of psychological torture is, and the long term nature of its effects.
McCoy goes on to makes a case for a lull in direct US use of torture between the end of the cold war and the start of the war on terror, though no doubt alumni of US interrogation training (especially the School of the Americas) still kept the light burning through those years. After September the 11th 2001, and with the CIA as the lead organisation in operations against Al-Qaeda and associates, incidents of torture of both types increased, culminating (at least in the public mind) with the events at Abu Ghraib. McCoy carefully makes clear that it was not a few bad apples, but orders from on high (The Whitehouse) set the scene for the depraved acts at Abu Ghraib, as well as the extraordinary rendition program, and all the rest of the sordid and grotesque acts carried out across the globe by American forces and their fellow travellers in a number of countries. The books final chapter "The Question of Torture" asks a number of questions regarding torture, and comes to the conclusion that it is generally ineffective, the circumstances in which its supporters make their strongest case (eg. Alan Dershowitz's ticking bomb) hasn't presented itself in the real world. Moreover even if the targets are limited to those identified as being important members of Al Qaeda (or the Vietcong in Vietnam, or the Bath party in Iraq) the practice will soon spread, and move from purely psychological to include physical torture. This is particularly true when the US sets against organisations that have a great deal of popular support and finds itself on the back foot. It is no coincidence that the most murderous campaign of interrogation and intelligence gathering occurred in Vietnam where the Viet Cong had a great deal of popular support.
In "A Question of Torture" Alfred McCoy has written a clear and concise history of the United States use of torture in the period from 1945-2006, how its doctrines developed, and spread via client regimes across the globe. It is a book that I'd strongly recommend to anyone who wishes to know how the leading self proclaimed Liberal Democracy behaves in reality. For UK readers I would also recommend Ian Cobains excellent Cruel Britannia: A Secret History of Torture which performs the same role vis-à-vis Britain. Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine, which cites this book, is also worth reading for its detailed account of the aforementioned Dr Cameron's experiments, as well as on its own merits.
April 2, 2023
“The ancient Roman jurist Ulpian once noted, when tortured the strong will resist and the weak will say anything to end the pain.” According to US militaries own estimates “90% of Iraqi detainees were innocent civilians.” In the four years after 9/11, the CIA didn’t find one ticking bomb, nothing to prove the value of all its torture.
Washington created the OSS during WWII and at the end of the war, hired Nazi scientists under Operation Paperclip. In 1947, the OSS is reborn as the CIA. The CIA got right to the devil’s work with Project Artichoke where it kept seven (unsuspecting American) patients at a drug treatment facility in Kentucky “on dangerous doses of LSD for seventy-seven days straight.” The CIA got off on finding “unwitting subjects”, “spiked drinks at a New York City party house” and then (readers with small children will enjoy this one) the CIA used US taxpayer dollars to pump “hallucinogens into children at summer camp.” What could go wrong? Does the CIA protect their own? President Ford had to authorize a payment for $750,000 to the family of a CIA scientist who committed suicide after he was secretly dosed with acid by the CIA guy in charge. The CIA spent billions of $ on mind-control research in the 1950’s. Our government could engage in fair dealing with fellow humans like the rest of us, or it could throw billions at trying to force strangers do whatever.
The CIA got big into psychological torture, but do you know why it hired psychologists over psychiatrists? Because psychologists don’t have to follow the Hippocratic Oath. Moral qualms are for sissies. Stanley Milgram’s shocking experiments would have destroyed his career but for his “intelligence connections.” A popular way to fuck with a detainee is screwing with their sense of what time it is – cells with no lights or sounds worked wonders. You scored points for making the detainee think he was inflicting whatever pain on himself by saying stuff to him like, “you leave me with no other choice but to…”
France had its own nasty history of torture in Algeria from 1954 to 1962 involving “the forcible relocation of two million Algerians, the deaths of 300,000 more and the brutal torture of several hundred thousand suspected rebels and their sympathizers.” The French Battle of Algiers was won through the use of torture but by becoming known for torturing, in the end the French lost Algeria. The CIA took the French waterboarding techniques done in Algeria to use themselves. An Algerian memoir of French techniques (The Question) was banned in France, even though Sartre wrote the introduction. In the end, France spent 130 years screwing with Algeria before finally leaving.
South Vietnam was where the CIA could test out its Kubark torture manual or exciting new ideas on civilians with the CIA Phoenix program there. The CIA’s Technical Services Division “shipped polygraph and electroshock machines in diplomatic pouches” to Vietnam – funny, how our leaders think shocking people’s ball sacks without their consent is somehow ‘diplomatic’. Congress exposed the Phoenix program in 1970. The crimes of Phoenix then simply moved over to Latin America – so many to torture and so little time! The author says the Phoenix Program in Vietnam was “a brutality that produced many casualties (20,587 dead Vietcong) but few verifiable results.” “Two CIA doctors subjected several Vietcong prisoners to a dozen electroshocks the first day and sixty during the next seven days until one died. When the last prisoners expired a few weeks later, the CIA operatives packed up their machine and flew home without breaking any of the Vietcong.” Freedom and Liberty USA style – your patriotic freedom and liberty to be tortured to death by the US for no reason at all.
In 1968, the CIA arrived in Vietnam with a skilled neurosurgeon who implanted electrodes in Vietcong to make them defecate or vomit – what an admirable skill set! “After a week of repeated failure, the prisoners were shot by Green Beret troopers and their bodies burned”. Did you know the Green Beret’s honest-to-God motto is “Liberate the Oppressed”? I guess that means we “oppress” you with torture and bullets then “liberate” your oppressed corpse with a flamethrower after a week of hell. So much honor in being a torturer. One tortured guy was promised to be reunited with his family but instead a “senior CIA official” had him thrown out over the South China Sea from an airplane. One Vietcong died by “the insertion of the six-inch dowel through the brain until he died.” Other American charmers attached sealed telephones to women’s vaginas and men’s testicles to shock them into submission. That delightful sealed telephone report ended with “not a single VC suspect had survived interrogation.” In 1974, the CIA’s Operation Chaos involved phone tapping US anti-war activists. How dare some wayward US Christians desire peace over US approved torture and murder?
Iran: During the Shah’s reign of terror, the CIA developed Iran’s dreaded SAVAK secret police, and trained their interrogators “based on German torture techniques from World War II”. When JFK was President, $500,000 worth of riot control was sent to Iran. “At least a half a million people have been beaten, whipped or tortured by SAVAK.” As the Shah told a reporter from Le Monde, “We have learned sophisticated methods of torture from you”. Lest you think the CIA is not doing this heinous stuff in OUR name, know that the official motto of the CIA is “The work of a nation.” Thus, torture is a gift from ALL of us. In the end, “torture introduced to defend the shah had instead destroyed the shah”. Quelle surprise.
The Philippines: Under Marcos, “an overwhelming 77 percent of the Filipinos killed were ‘salvaged’ – that is tortured, murdered, and their remains dumped for display.” Marcos’s top torturer studied “at the Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas”. His “understudy” flew to the US “for six months to one year for additional training under the Central Intelligence Agency.” “Filipino interrogators seemed to rely on brutal methods detailed in manuals distributed throughout Latin America.” Marcos was finally removed, as the Shah was, by turning off the population by too much damned torture.
Latin America and Project X: Project X was the transmission of the Phoenix program to South America. From 1966 to 1976 the US Army’s School of the Americas was in Panama where “hundreds of Latin officers” learned torture. Between 1989 and 1991, the School of the Americas moved to Georgia where future torturers were sent to learn. Ok people, today we start studying torture fellow human beings – You ready to take a stab at it? Willing to be a cut above the rest? The Pentagon later destroyed “almost all Project X documents.” One Honduran women recalled getting electric shocks for 35 days, being forced to eat raw dead birds and rats for dinner, and getting freezing water thrown on her naked body “every half hour for extended periods.” “The New York Times expose of the CIA’s role in Honduras prompted a congressional inquiry.” The NYT headline was “Torture was taught by the CIA”. “The public reaction was muted.” But then, for most Americans, torture now means when your iPhone can’t get Wi-Fi, or it’s too dark for a selfie.
Former CIA director George Tenet admitted that before 9/11, the CIA did ‘extraordinary rendition’ to seventy people – secretly flying them to where they could be tortured. “Hundreds of ordinary Afghans and thousands of innocent Iraqis” were subjected to “harsh interrogation.” As Bush II eloquently said about this, “I don’t what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass.” In 2002, this same president “decided to ‘suspend’ the Geneva Conventions for his war on terror. This led to placing anyone you wanted to torture into a new category: “illegal enemy combatants.” The new category kept them from being called ‘prisoners of war” or subject to the Geneva Convention. The British Observer wrote in 2004 that 3,000 terror suspects “were being held in CIA centers and allied prisons throughout the Middle East.” As one US official explained, “We don’t kick the shit out of them, we send them to other countries so they can kick the shit out of them.” To “send them” required a fleet of twenty-six charter aircraft; but we as taxpayers saved some money though, because the abducted got neither frequent flier miles, stewardesses, peanuts, nor in-flight movies. One retired CIA agent said, “after a detainee’s rights have been violated, you cannot put him on trial and you can’t kill him, creating a nightmare.”
One Afghan farmer named Dilawar was killed in US captivity by five days of “repeated unlawful knee strikes” that destroyed his leg muscles. That will teach him to not be a farmer. One detainee was held for “48 days of interrogation, often with four hours of sleep” where he was “told his mother and sister were whores”, forced to wear and a bra and panties and taunted over his “homosexual tendencies.” This is what the US calls “winning hearts and minds.” A lesson had been learned in Guantanamo Bay, military dogs could be used to threaten detainees. In 2003, a six-person team went from Cuba to Iraq to spread the good news – the Nazi’s shamelessly loved torturing with dogs and now we can too! Allah be praised! Boredom was setting in at Abu Ghraib which led to “forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions.” I picture the congressional bid: “If we can just get even MORE money for our military, we can print a Muslim version of the Kama Sutra with every position illustrated by captive recalcitrant devout Muslims.”
When one General said he didn’t care if the US was holding 15,000 innocent people, Karpinski shot back, Yeah, and “every one of them is our enemy when they get out.” Afghan Major General Mowhoush walks up to a US base to inquire about his son with US officials. Instead of helping him, a CIA team slapped, punched, and beat him with a hose, after which, in the name of American justice, he was zipped into a sleeping bag and beaten until dead (p.145). Imagine your last moments slowly dying from suffocation and blunt force trauma (from the autopsy done on him) for the crime of trusting Americans to help you.
In 2004, the Red Cross confirms that “once covert CIA procedures had now become standard doctrine in US detention centers worldwide.” I picture Jesus slowly suffocating while held down in a US body bag, breathing a sigh of relief, “At least, the US is bringing freedom and liberty to all us oppressed peoples.” The Red Cross called the US techniques at Guantanamo “tantamount to torture” and “a flagrant violation of medical ethics.” One FBI agent saw a detainee almost unconscious having spent the night pulling his own hair out after being toggled between extreme cold and extreme heat. FBI emails from Guantanamo discussed “placement of lit cigarettes into the detainees’ ear openings.” Why not shut down the CIA tomorrow and hire all these CIA sadistic assholes as screenwriters for horror movies? Or as well-paid teachers of sadism? The CIA could easily have taught Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy to not be such pussies.
After all the hoopla about Abu Ghraib died down “nobody above sergeant had gone to jail for prisoner abuse.” Justice was served - for those low on the totem pole. Centrist Thomas L. Friedman dared write that “Guantanamo Bay is becoming the anti-Statue of Liberty.” Centrist Arthur Schlesinger Jr wrote that US position on torture has done the most “damage to the American reputation in the world ever.” Centrists Carter and Clinton wanted Guantanamo closed. Even centrist John McCain felt the photos from Abu Ghraib “harmed us dramatically’ and that the issue “is not about who they are. It’s about who we are.” Abu Ghraib is more a stain on the Army; Bagram and Guantanamo are more a stain on the CIA because, at those places, the soldiers work more closely with the CIA. The CIA is also in Diego Garcia, Morocco, Egypt, Syria, and Uzbekistan; Uzbekistan being the most brutal CIA torture site of all. Together all these CIA sites are “a secret supranational gulag”. Just think, if all those torture sites were controlled instead by Putin, every American would get nightly news about EACH one.
The CIA searches for health professionals willing to do the Texas Two-Step around the UN’s 1982 Principles of Medical Ethics which prohibits any injury to detainees. Did you know the American Psychological Association (APA) has far more rules involving torturing animals than humans? The APA 2005 conclusion was torture is okay as long as you are “mindful of factors that require ethical consideration.” Ok, I’m feeling mindful, now where’s the damn Khashoggi-style bone saw? Senator Inhofe (famed climate denier) said of US torture, “we have nothing to be ashamed of.” That’s only because we haven’t seen Jim naked.
Fun Facts: “Professional interrogators perform within the 45% to 60% range in distinguishing truth from lies – little better than flipping a coin. Even skilled polygraph examiners have only an 85% accuracy rate.” Note that on “NYPD Blue” the TV Series that Detective Sipowicz spent 261 episodes using violence and intimidation to get his way – his violence is conveniently vindicated in every episode. Its weekly viewership was 20,000,000. As the great song from South Pacific reminds us, “You have to be carefully taught’. Right wingers (like Alan Dershowitz) depend on a single ridiculously unlikely scenario where one captured terrorist for sure knows info that will save huge numbers of lives if we simply torture him for it. What’s funny, is that to date no one can document a single case just like that ever existing. Thirty months after 9/11, of the “5,000 arbitrary arrests” by the US for terrorism there was only one conviction. Wasting the courts time and wasting taxpayer $ compensating all those detained victims – for what?
If you work for the defense industries, the greatest advantage of US torture is that it guarantees later blowback against the US which guarantees more defense spending which demands yet more torture – and so on or as Joni Mitchell says, “round and round and round and round in the Circle game.” Continually making more Jihadis to keep endless our bipartisan endless war; or as McCoy writes “the use of torture to stop torture has, paradoxically, created more terrorists.” A Rand Corp consultant put it this way: “Prisons are the main incubators for terrorists and insurgents.” Creating thousands of angry men (post-detainment) who long for revenge to wash away the tribal shame; what could go wrong? You can’t make coercion compatible with the truth, according to a Yale legal historian. Yes, some ex-prisoners might seek solace, but others might seek vengeance. Funny how the prisoners that Rumsfeld called “the worst of the worst”, the author instead calls “the least of the least.”
Jane Mayer writes in the New Yorker how the CIA still won’t let US citizens know what torturing the CIA is still doing in our names, and on our dime. That’s still classified info, probably to avoid huge resultant protests. So, what do we learn from this book? If, you see any American walking near you in your country, grab everyone you love and run? Be glad you are not a farmer? Be glad you aren’t a decorated general just looking for his son and daring enough to ask a US official? Hope you never get caught in an elevator with Alan Dershowitz? The last thing I wanted to do was read about US torture paid for by my taxpayer dollars, but my conscience kept squawking for me to take responsibility for learning what I SHOULD know. A great book by Mr. McCoy; I learned a lot.
Washington created the OSS during WWII and at the end of the war, hired Nazi scientists under Operation Paperclip. In 1947, the OSS is reborn as the CIA. The CIA got right to the devil’s work with Project Artichoke where it kept seven (unsuspecting American) patients at a drug treatment facility in Kentucky “on dangerous doses of LSD for seventy-seven days straight.” The CIA got off on finding “unwitting subjects”, “spiked drinks at a New York City party house” and then (readers with small children will enjoy this one) the CIA used US taxpayer dollars to pump “hallucinogens into children at summer camp.” What could go wrong? Does the CIA protect their own? President Ford had to authorize a payment for $750,000 to the family of a CIA scientist who committed suicide after he was secretly dosed with acid by the CIA guy in charge. The CIA spent billions of $ on mind-control research in the 1950’s. Our government could engage in fair dealing with fellow humans like the rest of us, or it could throw billions at trying to force strangers do whatever.
The CIA got big into psychological torture, but do you know why it hired psychologists over psychiatrists? Because psychologists don’t have to follow the Hippocratic Oath. Moral qualms are for sissies. Stanley Milgram’s shocking experiments would have destroyed his career but for his “intelligence connections.” A popular way to fuck with a detainee is screwing with their sense of what time it is – cells with no lights or sounds worked wonders. You scored points for making the detainee think he was inflicting whatever pain on himself by saying stuff to him like, “you leave me with no other choice but to…”
France had its own nasty history of torture in Algeria from 1954 to 1962 involving “the forcible relocation of two million Algerians, the deaths of 300,000 more and the brutal torture of several hundred thousand suspected rebels and their sympathizers.” The French Battle of Algiers was won through the use of torture but by becoming known for torturing, in the end the French lost Algeria. The CIA took the French waterboarding techniques done in Algeria to use themselves. An Algerian memoir of French techniques (The Question) was banned in France, even though Sartre wrote the introduction. In the end, France spent 130 years screwing with Algeria before finally leaving.
South Vietnam was where the CIA could test out its Kubark torture manual or exciting new ideas on civilians with the CIA Phoenix program there. The CIA’s Technical Services Division “shipped polygraph and electroshock machines in diplomatic pouches” to Vietnam – funny, how our leaders think shocking people’s ball sacks without their consent is somehow ‘diplomatic’. Congress exposed the Phoenix program in 1970. The crimes of Phoenix then simply moved over to Latin America – so many to torture and so little time! The author says the Phoenix Program in Vietnam was “a brutality that produced many casualties (20,587 dead Vietcong) but few verifiable results.” “Two CIA doctors subjected several Vietcong prisoners to a dozen electroshocks the first day and sixty during the next seven days until one died. When the last prisoners expired a few weeks later, the CIA operatives packed up their machine and flew home without breaking any of the Vietcong.” Freedom and Liberty USA style – your patriotic freedom and liberty to be tortured to death by the US for no reason at all.
In 1968, the CIA arrived in Vietnam with a skilled neurosurgeon who implanted electrodes in Vietcong to make them defecate or vomit – what an admirable skill set! “After a week of repeated failure, the prisoners were shot by Green Beret troopers and their bodies burned”. Did you know the Green Beret’s honest-to-God motto is “Liberate the Oppressed”? I guess that means we “oppress” you with torture and bullets then “liberate” your oppressed corpse with a flamethrower after a week of hell. So much honor in being a torturer. One tortured guy was promised to be reunited with his family but instead a “senior CIA official” had him thrown out over the South China Sea from an airplane. One Vietcong died by “the insertion of the six-inch dowel through the brain until he died.” Other American charmers attached sealed telephones to women’s vaginas and men’s testicles to shock them into submission. That delightful sealed telephone report ended with “not a single VC suspect had survived interrogation.” In 1974, the CIA’s Operation Chaos involved phone tapping US anti-war activists. How dare some wayward US Christians desire peace over US approved torture and murder?
Iran: During the Shah’s reign of terror, the CIA developed Iran’s dreaded SAVAK secret police, and trained their interrogators “based on German torture techniques from World War II”. When JFK was President, $500,000 worth of riot control was sent to Iran. “At least a half a million people have been beaten, whipped or tortured by SAVAK.” As the Shah told a reporter from Le Monde, “We have learned sophisticated methods of torture from you”. Lest you think the CIA is not doing this heinous stuff in OUR name, know that the official motto of the CIA is “The work of a nation.” Thus, torture is a gift from ALL of us. In the end, “torture introduced to defend the shah had instead destroyed the shah”. Quelle surprise.
The Philippines: Under Marcos, “an overwhelming 77 percent of the Filipinos killed were ‘salvaged’ – that is tortured, murdered, and their remains dumped for display.” Marcos’s top torturer studied “at the Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas”. His “understudy” flew to the US “for six months to one year for additional training under the Central Intelligence Agency.” “Filipino interrogators seemed to rely on brutal methods detailed in manuals distributed throughout Latin America.” Marcos was finally removed, as the Shah was, by turning off the population by too much damned torture.
Latin America and Project X: Project X was the transmission of the Phoenix program to South America. From 1966 to 1976 the US Army’s School of the Americas was in Panama where “hundreds of Latin officers” learned torture. Between 1989 and 1991, the School of the Americas moved to Georgia where future torturers were sent to learn. Ok people, today we start studying torture fellow human beings – You ready to take a stab at it? Willing to be a cut above the rest? The Pentagon later destroyed “almost all Project X documents.” One Honduran women recalled getting electric shocks for 35 days, being forced to eat raw dead birds and rats for dinner, and getting freezing water thrown on her naked body “every half hour for extended periods.” “The New York Times expose of the CIA’s role in Honduras prompted a congressional inquiry.” The NYT headline was “Torture was taught by the CIA”. “The public reaction was muted.” But then, for most Americans, torture now means when your iPhone can’t get Wi-Fi, or it’s too dark for a selfie.
Former CIA director George Tenet admitted that before 9/11, the CIA did ‘extraordinary rendition’ to seventy people – secretly flying them to where they could be tortured. “Hundreds of ordinary Afghans and thousands of innocent Iraqis” were subjected to “harsh interrogation.” As Bush II eloquently said about this, “I don’t what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass.” In 2002, this same president “decided to ‘suspend’ the Geneva Conventions for his war on terror. This led to placing anyone you wanted to torture into a new category: “illegal enemy combatants.” The new category kept them from being called ‘prisoners of war” or subject to the Geneva Convention. The British Observer wrote in 2004 that 3,000 terror suspects “were being held in CIA centers and allied prisons throughout the Middle East.” As one US official explained, “We don’t kick the shit out of them, we send them to other countries so they can kick the shit out of them.” To “send them” required a fleet of twenty-six charter aircraft; but we as taxpayers saved some money though, because the abducted got neither frequent flier miles, stewardesses, peanuts, nor in-flight movies. One retired CIA agent said, “after a detainee’s rights have been violated, you cannot put him on trial and you can’t kill him, creating a nightmare.”
One Afghan farmer named Dilawar was killed in US captivity by five days of “repeated unlawful knee strikes” that destroyed his leg muscles. That will teach him to not be a farmer. One detainee was held for “48 days of interrogation, often with four hours of sleep” where he was “told his mother and sister were whores”, forced to wear and a bra and panties and taunted over his “homosexual tendencies.” This is what the US calls “winning hearts and minds.” A lesson had been learned in Guantanamo Bay, military dogs could be used to threaten detainees. In 2003, a six-person team went from Cuba to Iraq to spread the good news – the Nazi’s shamelessly loved torturing with dogs and now we can too! Allah be praised! Boredom was setting in at Abu Ghraib which led to “forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions.” I picture the congressional bid: “If we can just get even MORE money for our military, we can print a Muslim version of the Kama Sutra with every position illustrated by captive recalcitrant devout Muslims.”
When one General said he didn’t care if the US was holding 15,000 innocent people, Karpinski shot back, Yeah, and “every one of them is our enemy when they get out.” Afghan Major General Mowhoush walks up to a US base to inquire about his son with US officials. Instead of helping him, a CIA team slapped, punched, and beat him with a hose, after which, in the name of American justice, he was zipped into a sleeping bag and beaten until dead (p.145). Imagine your last moments slowly dying from suffocation and blunt force trauma (from the autopsy done on him) for the crime of trusting Americans to help you.
In 2004, the Red Cross confirms that “once covert CIA procedures had now become standard doctrine in US detention centers worldwide.” I picture Jesus slowly suffocating while held down in a US body bag, breathing a sigh of relief, “At least, the US is bringing freedom and liberty to all us oppressed peoples.” The Red Cross called the US techniques at Guantanamo “tantamount to torture” and “a flagrant violation of medical ethics.” One FBI agent saw a detainee almost unconscious having spent the night pulling his own hair out after being toggled between extreme cold and extreme heat. FBI emails from Guantanamo discussed “placement of lit cigarettes into the detainees’ ear openings.” Why not shut down the CIA tomorrow and hire all these CIA sadistic assholes as screenwriters for horror movies? Or as well-paid teachers of sadism? The CIA could easily have taught Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy to not be such pussies.
After all the hoopla about Abu Ghraib died down “nobody above sergeant had gone to jail for prisoner abuse.” Justice was served - for those low on the totem pole. Centrist Thomas L. Friedman dared write that “Guantanamo Bay is becoming the anti-Statue of Liberty.” Centrist Arthur Schlesinger Jr wrote that US position on torture has done the most “damage to the American reputation in the world ever.” Centrists Carter and Clinton wanted Guantanamo closed. Even centrist John McCain felt the photos from Abu Ghraib “harmed us dramatically’ and that the issue “is not about who they are. It’s about who we are.” Abu Ghraib is more a stain on the Army; Bagram and Guantanamo are more a stain on the CIA because, at those places, the soldiers work more closely with the CIA. The CIA is also in Diego Garcia, Morocco, Egypt, Syria, and Uzbekistan; Uzbekistan being the most brutal CIA torture site of all. Together all these CIA sites are “a secret supranational gulag”. Just think, if all those torture sites were controlled instead by Putin, every American would get nightly news about EACH one.
The CIA searches for health professionals willing to do the Texas Two-Step around the UN’s 1982 Principles of Medical Ethics which prohibits any injury to detainees. Did you know the American Psychological Association (APA) has far more rules involving torturing animals than humans? The APA 2005 conclusion was torture is okay as long as you are “mindful of factors that require ethical consideration.” Ok, I’m feeling mindful, now where’s the damn Khashoggi-style bone saw? Senator Inhofe (famed climate denier) said of US torture, “we have nothing to be ashamed of.” That’s only because we haven’t seen Jim naked.
Fun Facts: “Professional interrogators perform within the 45% to 60% range in distinguishing truth from lies – little better than flipping a coin. Even skilled polygraph examiners have only an 85% accuracy rate.” Note that on “NYPD Blue” the TV Series that Detective Sipowicz spent 261 episodes using violence and intimidation to get his way – his violence is conveniently vindicated in every episode. Its weekly viewership was 20,000,000. As the great song from South Pacific reminds us, “You have to be carefully taught’. Right wingers (like Alan Dershowitz) depend on a single ridiculously unlikely scenario where one captured terrorist for sure knows info that will save huge numbers of lives if we simply torture him for it. What’s funny, is that to date no one can document a single case just like that ever existing. Thirty months after 9/11, of the “5,000 arbitrary arrests” by the US for terrorism there was only one conviction. Wasting the courts time and wasting taxpayer $ compensating all those detained victims – for what?
If you work for the defense industries, the greatest advantage of US torture is that it guarantees later blowback against the US which guarantees more defense spending which demands yet more torture – and so on or as Joni Mitchell says, “round and round and round and round in the Circle game.” Continually making more Jihadis to keep endless our bipartisan endless war; or as McCoy writes “the use of torture to stop torture has, paradoxically, created more terrorists.” A Rand Corp consultant put it this way: “Prisons are the main incubators for terrorists and insurgents.” Creating thousands of angry men (post-detainment) who long for revenge to wash away the tribal shame; what could go wrong? You can’t make coercion compatible with the truth, according to a Yale legal historian. Yes, some ex-prisoners might seek solace, but others might seek vengeance. Funny how the prisoners that Rumsfeld called “the worst of the worst”, the author instead calls “the least of the least.”
Jane Mayer writes in the New Yorker how the CIA still won’t let US citizens know what torturing the CIA is still doing in our names, and on our dime. That’s still classified info, probably to avoid huge resultant protests. So, what do we learn from this book? If, you see any American walking near you in your country, grab everyone you love and run? Be glad you are not a farmer? Be glad you aren’t a decorated general just looking for his son and daring enough to ask a US official? Hope you never get caught in an elevator with Alan Dershowitz? The last thing I wanted to do was read about US torture paid for by my taxpayer dollars, but my conscience kept squawking for me to take responsibility for learning what I SHOULD know. A great book by Mr. McCoy; I learned a lot.
March 31, 2023
An amazing book. Completely changed the way I understand things like MKULTRA. You hear about MKULTRA and you think, wow, that's so fucked up that the FBI/CIA did stuff like that. But, McCoy argues convincingly, the MKULTRA stuff was the FBI/CIA's *failed* project. Their *successful* project, the one we should *actually* be scared of and make a big deal about, was the project of developing methods of torture that *didn't* involve drugs, and *didn't* involve physical torture. Long story short, the CIA/FBI finally "perfected" torture by focusing on sensory deprivation/disorientation. It turns out that leaving someone in solitary confinement with painted goggles and heavy gloves and nose plugs, is far more effective than anything achievable using drugs or physical violence... Terrifying, but, explains a lot about why the FBI/CIA are pretty blazé about people knowing of their drug experiments... (I.e., so that they *don't* look into their sensory deprivation experiments)
May 20, 2023
this book was an incredibly disturbing and sobering read and i’ve learnt so much about how torture is an unproductive means to attain information. obviously this whole book is important to read, but if this content is too disturbing, i recommend for people who still want to learn and formulate an opinion on the matter read the last chapter, chapter 6: the question of torture.
May 20, 2023
Incredibly thorough and detailed account. Last chapter especially stands out in compiling all the facts in order to address main questions of concern. Must have been very controversial at the time of its release.
August 22, 2007
Here is one good reason to read this book:
[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20357580/]
I do not think that Colonel Jacobs intended to make any kind of a comment on torture. But the paranoia he claims is helpful for our national defense is the same paranoia that allowed for the creation of torture programs by the CIA. The specifics of the CIA programs are honestly terrifying (testing on unknowing US citizens, the size of the programs all over the world, etc) and are well worth reading about. McCoy also makes a convincing case that torture is not only counter-productive in the obvious ways, but is also very ineffective at accomplishing its goal of gaining information. The book does an excellent job of putting the current debate on torture in its historical context. It is also very well documented, which is very important given how shocking it is. A must read for anyone interested in the torture debate, in the CIA, in American history after WWII, or for anyone who isn't convinced that "they hate us for our freedom."
[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20357580/]
I do not think that Colonel Jacobs intended to make any kind of a comment on torture. But the paranoia he claims is helpful for our national defense is the same paranoia that allowed for the creation of torture programs by the CIA. The specifics of the CIA programs are honestly terrifying (testing on unknowing US citizens, the size of the programs all over the world, etc) and are well worth reading about. McCoy also makes a convincing case that torture is not only counter-productive in the obvious ways, but is also very ineffective at accomplishing its goal of gaining information. The book does an excellent job of putting the current debate on torture in its historical context. It is also very well documented, which is very important given how shocking it is. A must read for anyone interested in the torture debate, in the CIA, in American history after WWII, or for anyone who isn't convinced that "they hate us for our freedom."
February 20, 2013
The CIA spent billions of dollars over the years developing psychological tools for interrogation. They funded a study on the effects of electroshocks and recruited a former Nazi scientist who had administered mescaline to Jewish prisoners at Dachau. Studies show that cheap, simple methods work best (enforced standing) and are more acceptable to the public. Booklist called this title “timely and compelling.”
April 4, 2013
Enjoyable read of the history of torture with focal points on the Vietnam era CIA program, Operation Phoenix, and since this was written in 2006, the amorphous Bush White House torture policies that resulted in many prisoners who in the words of the book are "too dangerous to release and too tainted for trial".
Looking forward to reading his 2012 work Torture And Impunity as a follow up.
Looking forward to reading his 2012 work Torture And Impunity as a follow up.
March 27, 2013
This documents how the U.S. and the American Psychological Association conspired to invent the first new form of torture known to mankind in the past 1000 years, and how any other "political view" is either tacitly irrational at best or maliciously culpable at worst.
June 14, 2011
Thorough overview of development of CIA interrogation practices developed from modern psychology, and its use over the past five decades
August 28, 2012
Don't walk to get this book, RUN.
December 14, 2019
This book is the very reason why I hate ordering things online.
I had to do a book review for a Journalism class I took in university and this book was on the reading list of potential options.
The book report was due in early December, so I started the assignment, like a good student, in late November, even though it was given to us the first day of class.
I ordered a copy of the book and it should have arrived with ample time to read it and make a report on it.
A week later the book still hadn’t arrived and I had only a week and a half till the due date.
Slightly panicked I emailed Amazon and had another book sent to replace the one that didn’t arrive.
Fast forward to three days before the assignment was due. Still neither book came and I couldn’t wait any longer.
Also, none of the books on the reading list were available at any bookstore in the city.
I had a small hope that I could download the book on my Kobo (e-reader) and to my luck it was there. I then spent the next 2 or so days reading this book and making a 10 page report on it.
Now time for the actual review.
I really enjoyed this book. It’s a researched account of the use of torture by the US.
“An indispensable and riveting account” of the CIA’s development and use of torture, from the cold war to Abu Ghraib and beyond (Naomi Klein, The Nation
In this revelatory account of the CIA’s fifty-year effort to develop new forms of torture, historian Alfred W. McCoy locates the deep roots of recent scandals at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo in a long-standing, covert program of interrogation. A Question of Torture investigates the CIA’s practice of “sensory deprivation” and “self-inflicted pain,” in which techniques including isolation, hooding, hours of standing, and manipulation of time assault the victim’s senses and destroy the basis of personal identity.
It is really fascinating to learn of the methods that the US developed and tried to spread around the world, but at the same time disturbing when you hear of the people that were being tortured.
It is also a different view on torture that I think a lot of people have.
I think most people think torture is someone beating the crap out of another guy to get information, which is what we see in a lot of action movies.
What McCoy talks about is torture that involves much less physical harm and much more psychological harm.
I am a little bit of a history nerd so this book shed some light on a part of history that I had never really thought of before.
Fair warning, it can get a bit gruesome at some points. It gives some pretty detailed account of different torture techniques.
Another little interesting fact from the book, the US was doing torturing people and trying to teach their allies how to do so also, all while speaking out against torture internationally…some may not be surprised.
Verdict: Worth the read, only if you can stomach it and if you love history. I think that torture is something that not a lot of people want to think about but its something that needs to be known.
I want to hear what you guys love about history, or some of your favorite moments from history. Let me know in the comments or send me an email. Feel free to contact me for the ending of my book fiasco too, I’ll tell you what happened to the 2 copies I ordered.
I had to do a book review for a Journalism class I took in university and this book was on the reading list of potential options.
The book report was due in early December, so I started the assignment, like a good student, in late November, even though it was given to us the first day of class.
I ordered a copy of the book and it should have arrived with ample time to read it and make a report on it.
A week later the book still hadn’t arrived and I had only a week and a half till the due date.
Slightly panicked I emailed Amazon and had another book sent to replace the one that didn’t arrive.
Fast forward to three days before the assignment was due. Still neither book came and I couldn’t wait any longer.
Also, none of the books on the reading list were available at any bookstore in the city.
I had a small hope that I could download the book on my Kobo (e-reader) and to my luck it was there. I then spent the next 2 or so days reading this book and making a 10 page report on it.
Now time for the actual review.
I really enjoyed this book. It’s a researched account of the use of torture by the US.
“An indispensable and riveting account” of the CIA’s development and use of torture, from the cold war to Abu Ghraib and beyond (Naomi Klein, The Nation
In this revelatory account of the CIA’s fifty-year effort to develop new forms of torture, historian Alfred W. McCoy locates the deep roots of recent scandals at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo in a long-standing, covert program of interrogation. A Question of Torture investigates the CIA’s practice of “sensory deprivation” and “self-inflicted pain,” in which techniques including isolation, hooding, hours of standing, and manipulation of time assault the victim’s senses and destroy the basis of personal identity.
It is really fascinating to learn of the methods that the US developed and tried to spread around the world, but at the same time disturbing when you hear of the people that were being tortured.
It is also a different view on torture that I think a lot of people have.
I think most people think torture is someone beating the crap out of another guy to get information, which is what we see in a lot of action movies.
What McCoy talks about is torture that involves much less physical harm and much more psychological harm.
I am a little bit of a history nerd so this book shed some light on a part of history that I had never really thought of before.
Fair warning, it can get a bit gruesome at some points. It gives some pretty detailed account of different torture techniques.
Another little interesting fact from the book, the US was doing torturing people and trying to teach their allies how to do so also, all while speaking out against torture internationally…some may not be surprised.
Verdict: Worth the read, only if you can stomach it and if you love history. I think that torture is something that not a lot of people want to think about but its something that needs to be known.
I want to hear what you guys love about history, or some of your favorite moments from history. Let me know in the comments or send me an email. Feel free to contact me for the ending of my book fiasco too, I’ll tell you what happened to the 2 copies I ordered.
May 13, 2019
Our CIA has a long history of using torture and murder against our suspected enemies. A problem is 90% of the suspects they round up are innocent or very low operatives who know very little. Anybody else remember the stories of prisoners being beaten, electrocuted, hung by chains, waterboarded, put in damp, rat infested cells, having food withheld and thrown out of airplanes over Vietnam to their death? The author calls it "pump and dump" or torture followed by killing so they didn't have to deal with and spend money on keeping jails and prisoners.
These atrocities by the CIA reached their apex under the Republican conservatives "Christian" president George Bush after 9-11 even though it was known how ineffective was the use of torture. One of the first things he did was o.k. it's use. Many of the techniques used during Vietnam were later found to be used in Abu Ghraib.
Many lawsuits have been brought by the ACLU and other civil rights groups resulting in the passage of some laws for more humane treatment of combat prisoners. Here's hoping for an end to a useless, immoral, unethical anti religious technique.
These atrocities by the CIA reached their apex under the Republican conservatives "Christian" president George Bush after 9-11 even though it was known how ineffective was the use of torture. One of the first things he did was o.k. it's use. Many of the techniques used during Vietnam were later found to be used in Abu Ghraib.
Many lawsuits have been brought by the ACLU and other civil rights groups resulting in the passage of some laws for more humane treatment of combat prisoners. Here's hoping for an end to a useless, immoral, unethical anti religious technique.
January 11, 2018
Gut-wrenching succinct history connecting CIA research into psychological torture through an escalating coercive path that we all kind of know (countering-with-terror in Vietnam, training police and counter-guerilla regimes in Iran, Latin America, and the Philippines) to the Bush admin's decision to suspend the Geneva conventions for Afghanistan and Guantanamo detainees (under a fearfully strong desire to enable torture) and more broadly encourage CIA extraordinary rendition and participation in mass interrogation in Iraq. McCoy draws exceedingly clear lines connecting the CIAs evolving techniques of the 60s-80s and those seen clearly in the Abu Ghraib prison photos and in Guantanamo accounts. Finishes by confronting the questions of accuracy, effectiveness, and counter-productiveness of torture more generally, whether applied to the highest-value mastermind or to the seemingly inevitable indiscriminate masses of "bad guys". Tough read throughout.
January 20, 2020
Project MKUltra, popularised recently in the Netflix show Stranger Things, is actually real. It was a covert CIA programme started in the early 1950s, researching everything from mind control to telepathy, ESP, psychic warfare and “remote viewing”. This amazing book "A question of torture", by Alfred McCoy, Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, tells the history of covert CIA torture programs and how these developed more "sophisticated" torture practices and spread them around the world.
July 8, 2017
I felt he occasionally exaggerated things (making somebody stand for four hours is not "torture"), but overall an important read.
December 22, 2019
A thoroughly-researched analysis of the role of the CIA in American foreign policy during the past 60 years.
June 27, 2022
Depressing, but an informative read. I did not know most of the history.
Read
December 4, 2022An interesting read that I recommend to anyone. A shocking, horrifying and thoughtful look into torture.
May 15, 2016
A dated but insightful and readable book on the CIA’s involvement in researching and utilizing interrogation methods both traditional and controversial. Of course, it is rather dated at this point, given the wealth of new information available since the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s own study in 2014. The book sells itself as a history of CIA interrogation practices and abuses; instead it comes off as a general condemnation of all coercive interrogation methods.
McCoy begins with an overview of torture and harsh interrogation methods, how the CIA began utilizing controversial interrogation techniques in the Cold War (hypnosis, psychosurgery, drugs, and of course, the infamous LSD experiments), and how these techniques were often based on Soviet methods. McCoy describes the disappointing results from these programs, and how sensory disorientation, sleep deprivation and “self-inflicted pain” (stress positions, threats, and psychological torment) were decided to be more effective. McCoy also describes the use of far more brutal torture by America’s Cold War allies in such places as Vietnam, Latin America, Iran, and the Philippines. McCoy also describes how the end of the Cold War put a hiatus on these activities.
Finally, McCoy covers the torture controversies of the post-9/11 era and criticizes the inability of the court system, the military and Congress to impose any accountability. He examines the question of these methods’ effectiveness and the evidence for the “ticking time bomb” scenario and argues that these arguments have little merit. He then poses the question of why governments resort to these methods in times of crisis, concluding that they do so “not because it works but because it salves their fears and insecurities with the psychic balm of empowerment.”
A mostly dispassionate work, although McCoy is critical and dismissive of officials and scholars who have different views, often without much elaboration. McCoy mostly seems to have a good grasp of the history. McCoy seems to attribute extraordinary power to the Agency, with a huge influence among government and military organizations. When describing MK/ULTRA, the Phoenix program, and Abu Ghraib, he writes of a “clear mosaic of a clandestine agency manipulating its government and deceiving citizens to propagate a new form of torture throughout the Third World.” McCoy ascribes a unique and vital role to the Agency in psychological torture throughout the world and throughout history. These parts of the book tend to come off as simplistic. McCoy attacks the Agency’s policies but his evidence basically amounts to only a few items: MK/ULTRA, KU/BARK and allegations of “systematic” torture during the Vietnam War and the War on Terror (somehow McCoy skips over the fact that the KU/BARK manual doesn’t even mention torture and that the controversy over MK/ULTRA doesn’t really have anything to do with torture) He even seems to blame Abu Ghraib on the KU/BARK manual and does not cover any other factors. McCoy also covers the 2005 PENS report, and his condemnation of that organization seems too broad; he seems to paint the event as an “investigation” of psychologists’ role in the CIA’s interrogation program, when in fact the group was basically just presenting their ethics code, and McCoy does not cover any of the internal conflict within the PENS. He also frequently uses the term “extrajudicial” to attack the CIA’s methods, but never elaborates on what he means. Also, when discussing Donald Hebb’s role in the Agency’s mind-control research, he writes that the CIA funded his work, although there isn’t really any evidence for that, and McCoy often seems to mix up Hebb’s work with that of Ewen Cameron. He also keeps referring to CIA officers as “agents,” and claims that revelations of US abuses have only created more terrorists, a common argument but one that is ultimately impossible to prove or disprove.
An informative, work, although it seems a bit selective and reductionist at times. And of course, it's a bit dated since there is far more material available now.
McCoy begins with an overview of torture and harsh interrogation methods, how the CIA began utilizing controversial interrogation techniques in the Cold War (hypnosis, psychosurgery, drugs, and of course, the infamous LSD experiments), and how these techniques were often based on Soviet methods. McCoy describes the disappointing results from these programs, and how sensory disorientation, sleep deprivation and “self-inflicted pain” (stress positions, threats, and psychological torment) were decided to be more effective. McCoy also describes the use of far more brutal torture by America’s Cold War allies in such places as Vietnam, Latin America, Iran, and the Philippines. McCoy also describes how the end of the Cold War put a hiatus on these activities.
Finally, McCoy covers the torture controversies of the post-9/11 era and criticizes the inability of the court system, the military and Congress to impose any accountability. He examines the question of these methods’ effectiveness and the evidence for the “ticking time bomb” scenario and argues that these arguments have little merit. He then poses the question of why governments resort to these methods in times of crisis, concluding that they do so “not because it works but because it salves their fears and insecurities with the psychic balm of empowerment.”
A mostly dispassionate work, although McCoy is critical and dismissive of officials and scholars who have different views, often without much elaboration. McCoy mostly seems to have a good grasp of the history. McCoy seems to attribute extraordinary power to the Agency, with a huge influence among government and military organizations. When describing MK/ULTRA, the Phoenix program, and Abu Ghraib, he writes of a “clear mosaic of a clandestine agency manipulating its government and deceiving citizens to propagate a new form of torture throughout the Third World.” McCoy ascribes a unique and vital role to the Agency in psychological torture throughout the world and throughout history. These parts of the book tend to come off as simplistic. McCoy attacks the Agency’s policies but his evidence basically amounts to only a few items: MK/ULTRA, KU/BARK and allegations of “systematic” torture during the Vietnam War and the War on Terror (somehow McCoy skips over the fact that the KU/BARK manual doesn’t even mention torture and that the controversy over MK/ULTRA doesn’t really have anything to do with torture) He even seems to blame Abu Ghraib on the KU/BARK manual and does not cover any other factors. McCoy also covers the 2005 PENS report, and his condemnation of that organization seems too broad; he seems to paint the event as an “investigation” of psychologists’ role in the CIA’s interrogation program, when in fact the group was basically just presenting their ethics code, and McCoy does not cover any of the internal conflict within the PENS. He also frequently uses the term “extrajudicial” to attack the CIA’s methods, but never elaborates on what he means. Also, when discussing Donald Hebb’s role in the Agency’s mind-control research, he writes that the CIA funded his work, although there isn’t really any evidence for that, and McCoy often seems to mix up Hebb’s work with that of Ewen Cameron. He also keeps referring to CIA officers as “agents,” and claims that revelations of US abuses have only created more terrorists, a common argument but one that is ultimately impossible to prove or disprove.
An informative, work, although it seems a bit selective and reductionist at times. And of course, it's a bit dated since there is far more material available now.
October 8, 2013
As I was finishing the Shock Doctrine, I found this. Mind you, I didn't pick it up and drop the Shock Doctrine. No no. I just read the intro. It was a freakin' teaser! So after the shock doctrine was done I jumped right into this. It's a really well researched piece and definitely gave more foundation for the things Klein opened with in her book. There were times when I was annoyed with the author because I think he assumes the consciousness of Americans (why didn't they do anything) and yet there was so much done. Grand generalizations like that kind of sour my reading. Thankfully there weren't many places like that in the book. Whereas Klein paints this incredibly sickening portrait of the torturous psychological studies conducted in the 50's and on, McCoy doesn't dwell on the sickening, phenomenological experience, but rather focuses on the policy trail leading from the 50's all the way to Abu Ghraib. Again, really good research. He left me with a moral admonition that this can't be allowed to happen again, but offers little toward the practicality of stopping such things. Then again, I don't think that's what this book is about. A solid, engaging read.
May 22, 2010
I knew bad things were happening in our name....McCoy does not let the reader down by leaving out details. I had to put the book down a few times in order to recollect myself. And I was JUST READING what was done during torture interrogations. McCoy brings up the great point about top-bottom responsibility, "losing" memos as evidence of OKing such abuse, as well as asking the question, "If it is ok to torture a few, does it become easier to stretch-out or move the crossing line to who should and should not be tortured in order to get information?" He also gives evidence from experts in espionage and how they get information out of terrorist...All pointing away from physical abuse saying it would never be on their list, as it would make the person LESS likely to divulge information and give them strength to keep it to themselves.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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November 11, 2008It covers the last fifty years of American research into torture, primarily psychological and discusses how these techniques have been disseminated to military, intelligence and law enforcement entities. McCoy describes the atrocities at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay as examples of America's contribution to the ancient art of torture. It is part of a series of books called The American Empire Project, which includes a contribution from Noam Chomsky.
Kelly
Kelly
July 1, 2009
McCoy documents torture used by US government agencies. It existed decades before George W Bush's stay in the white house. Besides being as despicable and barbaric as slavery, torture doesn't even work. Someone being tortured will tell you whatever it is they think you want to hear to get you to stop. Please visit a center for survivors of torture somewhere.
November 2, 2007
This was a quick interesting read. I feel like it was really biased but that might just be because I don't want to believe that anyone is capable of the things described in this book.
July 14, 2011
Scary view of what the government is allowed to do to whom ever they want.
September 11, 2016
Skillfully written, clearly argued, meticulously documented. A must-read; HIGHLY recommended.
April 8, 2016
A book every American should read.
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