Articles on Torture HOME PAGE
"The Dark Art of Interrogation" by Mark Bowden (THE ATLANTIC, October 2003) "The most effective way to gather intelligence and thwart terrorism can also be a direct route into morally repugnant terrain. A survey of the landscape of persuasion." http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200310/bowden
"The Case for Torture" by Michael Levin (Newsweek, 1982)
The Abu Ghraib Photographs--a slide show: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/03/slideshow_040503
"BELIEVE ME, IT'S TORTURE" by Christopher Hitchens
Video of Hitchens’s waterboarding experience. http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/video/2008/hitchens_video200808
For another case of voluntary waterboarding, see http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local-beat/Mancow-Takes-on-Waterboarding-and-Loses.html
Articles in THE NEW YORKER
By Jane Mayer:
"The Black Sites: A rare look inside the C.I.A.’s secret interrogation program." By Jane Mayer (August 13, 2007) http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/13/070813fa_fact_mayer?printable=true
"Whatever It Takes: The politics of the man behind '24.'" By Jane Mayer (February 19, 2007) http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/02/19/070219fa_fact_mayer?printable=true
"The Memo: How an internal effort to ban the abuse and torture of detainees was thwarted." By Jane Mayer (February 27, 2006) http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/02/27/060227fa_fact?printable=true
"A Deadly Interrogation: Can the C.I.A. legally kill a prisoner?" By Jane Mayer (November 14, 2005) http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/11/14/051114fa_fact?printable=true
"The Experiment: The military trains people to withstand interrogation. Are those methods being misused at Guantánamo?" By Jane Mayer (July 11, 2005) http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/07/11/050711fa_fact4?printable=true
"Outsourcing Torture: The secret history of America’s "extraordinary rendition" program." By Jane Mayer (February 14, 2005) http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/02/14/050214fa_fact6
By Seymour Hersh
"Torture at Abu Ghraib: American soldiers brutalized Iraqis. How far up does the responsibility go? " By Seymour M. Hersh (May 10, 2004) http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/10/040510fa_fact
"I'M STILL TORTURED BY WHAT I SAW IN IRAQ" By Matthew Alexander
"REJECTING VICE-PRESIDENT'S CHENEY'S TALK ON TORTURE"
"McCain Rebukes Giuliani on Waterboarding"
"Breaking the Will: How Waterboarding Got the Green Light From Bush"
"The Logic of Torture" ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6950-2004Jun25.html)
PBS "FRONTLINE"--"The Torture Question" (90 minutes) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/torture/view/
UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/h_cat39.htm
For an hour-long audio interview with Darius Rejali (Reed College political scientist who argues, in TORTURE AND DEMOCRACY, that torture does not work): http://www.electricpolitics.com/media/mp3/EP2008.05.02.mp3
"Situationist Ethics: The Stanford Prison Experiment doesn't explain Abu Ghraib" by William Saletan, May 12, 2004, http://www.slate.com/toolbar.aspx? action=print&id=2100419
STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT--links http://www.prisonexp.org/links.htm
DAILY SHOW: Philip Zimbardo compares Stanford Prison Experiment to Abu Ghraib: http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=84518&title=philip-zimbardo
STANFORD MAGAZINE: "Zimbardo Unbound: Long after his notorious prison experiment and soon after the Abu Ghraib scandal, the famous psychologist lobbies for a greater understanding of how evil systems subvert good people" http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2007/mayjun/features/zimbardo.html
"What makes good people do bad things? Former APA president drew from research to help explain evil under the backdrop of recent Iraqi prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib." APA ON-LINE http://www.apa.org/monitor/oct04/goodbad.html
Martha Nussbaum, "Texts for Torturers" (book review of Zimbardo, THE LUCIFER EFFECT): http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article2677344.ece
"Containing Torture: How torture begets even more torture" By Darius Rejali (Oct. 27, 2006, SLATE Magazine) "President Bush has insisted that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 is an essential tool for military and CIA prosecution of the war against terrorists. And yesterday, Vice President Dick Cheney argued that choking someone in water to gather needed intelligence is a "no brainer" and that the MCA covered the White House's "fairly robust interrogation program," including this technique. Legislation of this sort is always slippery, and the newspapers and legal blogs are full of disagreements about exactly what the new law means and what its effects will be. But one lasting effect is almost certain: Historically, laws like the Military Commissions Act have powerful corrupting forces on the militaries that use them, making them less able to achieve their ultimate goals." MORE: http://www.slate.com/id/2152268/
"Of Human Bondage" by Darius Rejali (SALON, June 18, 2004) "The kinds of torture used at Abu Ghraib stem from techniques common to colonial imperialists, Stalin's secret police and the Gestapo." http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/06/18/torture_methods/print.html
"5 Myths About Torture and Truth" by Darius Rejali (Sunday, December 16, 2007; B03 WASHINGTON POST) "So the CIA did indeed torture Abu Zubaida, the first al-Qaeda terrorist suspect to have been waterboarded. So says John Kiriakou, the first former CIA employee directly involved in the questioning of "high-value" al-Qaeda detainees to speak out publicly. He minced no words last week in calling the CIA's "enhanced interrogation techniques" what they are. But did they work? Torture's defenders, including the wannabe tough guys who write Fox's "24," insist that the rough stuff gets results. "It was like flipping a switch," said Kiriakou about Abu Zubaida's response to being waterboarded. But the al-Qaeda operative's confessions -- descriptions of fantastic plots from a man who intelligence analysts were convinced was mentally ill -- probably didn't give the CIA any actionable intelligence. Of course, we may never know the whole truth, since the CIA destroyed the videotapes of Abu Zubaida's interrogation. But here are some other myths that are bound to come up as the debate over torture rages on." MORE: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/13/AR2007121301303.html
"Torture Interrogation of Terrorists: A Theory of Exceptions (With Notes, Cautions, and Warnings)" by Major (USAF) William D. Casebeer, Ph.D. htp://www.usafa.edu/isme/JSCOPE03/Casebeer03.html
"Confessions of a Torturer" By John Conroy( March 2,007) "TONY LAGOURANIS DOESN’T fit the profile of a person likely to go wrong by following orders. He’s lived a footloose life unconstrained by a desire for professional advancement, for the approval of superiors, even for a comfortable home. A freethinker, he read the great works of Western civilization in college and mastered classical languages. It was his desire to learn Arabic as well that took him to Iraq. And there, as an army interrogator, he tortured detainees for information he admits they rarely had. Since leaving Iraq he’s taken this story public, doing battle on national television against the war’s architects for giving him the orders he regrets he obeyed. . . . " MORE: http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/torture/
"The Ploy" by Mark Bowden (THE ATLANTIC, May 2007) http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200705/tracking-zarqawi "The inside story of how the interrogators of Task Force 145 cracked Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s inner circle—without resorting to torture—and hunted down al-Qaeda’s man in Iraq." This is the same story recounted in HOW TO CRACK A TERRORIST by Matthew Alexander.
"The Short, Violent Life of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi" by Mary Anne Weaver. "How a video-store clerk and small-time crook reinvented himself as America’s nemesis in Iraq" http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200607/zarqawi
Levinson, "The Debate on Torture"
Waldron, "The Dershowitz Strategy"
Walzer, "Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands" (excerpt)