Torture Team

Torture Team PDF Author: Philippe Sands
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 014191937X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
After 9/11. George W. Bush's administration declared that they were going to have to work through 'the dark side'. And they did: they turned their backs on international law and on America's history of respecting human rights. They wanted only legal advice that made it okay to torture, and they made sure they got it. Voices of dissent were sidelined, while low level officials brainstormed interrogation techniques and took their lead from Jack Bauer in 24. In Torture Team, Philippe Sands tracks down and interviews those responsible, and makes a compelling case that, in an ugly blotch on Americda's recent past, war crimes were committed for which no one has yet been held to account.

Torture Team

Torture Team PDF Author: Philippe Sands
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 014191937X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 281

Get Book Here

Book Description
After 9/11. George W. Bush's administration declared that they were going to have to work through 'the dark side'. And they did: they turned their backs on international law and on America's history of respecting human rights. They wanted only legal advice that made it okay to torture, and they made sure they got it. Voices of dissent were sidelined, while low level officials brainstormed interrogation techniques and took their lead from Jack Bauer in 24. In Torture Team, Philippe Sands tracks down and interviews those responsible, and makes a compelling case that, in an ugly blotch on Americda's recent past, war crimes were committed for which no one has yet been held to account.

The Torture Memos

The Torture Memos PDF Author: David Cole
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 1595584935
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 333

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Book Description
On April 16, 2009, the Justice Department released never-before-seen secret memos describing, in graphic detail, the brutal interrogation techniques used by the CIA under the Bush administration's "war on terror." Now, for the first time, the key documents are compiled in one remarkable volume, showing that the United States government's top attorneys were instrumental in rationalizing acts of torture and cruelty, employing chillingly twisted logic and Orwellian reasoning to authorize what the law absolutely forbids. This collection gives readers an unfiltered look at the tactics approved for use in the CIA's secret overseas prisons—including forcing detainees to stay awake for eleven days straight, slamming them against walls, stripping them naked, locking them in a small box with insects to manipulate their fears, and, of course, waterboarding—and at the incredible arguments advanced to give them a green light. Originally issued in secret by the Office of Legal Counsel between 2002 and 2005, the documents collected here have been edited only to eliminate repetition. They reflect, in their own words, the analysis that guided the legal architects of the Bush administration's interrogation policies. Renowned legal scholar David Cole's introductory essay tells the story behind the memos, and presents a compelling case that instead of demanding that the CIA conform its conduct to the law, the nation's top lawyers contorted the law to conform to the CIA's abusive and patently illegal conduct. He argues eloquently that official accountability for these legal wrongs is essential if the United States is to restore fidelity to the rule of law.

Does Torture Prevention Work?

Does Torture Prevention Work? PDF Author: Richard Carver
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 1781383308
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 688

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Book Description
In the past three decades, international and regional human rights bodies have developed an ever-lengthening list of measures that states are required to adopt in order to prevent torture. But do any of these mechanisms actually work? This study is the first systematic analysis of the effectiveness of torture prevention. Primary research was conducted in 16 countries, looking at their experience of torture and prevention mechanisms over a 30-year period. Data was analysed using a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques. Prevention measures do work, although some are much more effective than others. Most important of all are the safeguards that should be applied in the first hours and days after a person is taken into custody. Notification of family and access to an independent lawyer and doctor have a significant impact in reducing torture. The investigation and prosecution of torturers and the creation of independent monitoring bodies are also important in reducing torture. An important caveat to the conclusion that prevention works is that is actual practice in police stations and detention centres that matters - not treaties ratified or laws on the statute book.

Torture

Torture PDF Author: Manfred Nowak
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812249917
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
In Torture, former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak recounts his experience visiting countries, reviewing documents, collecting evidence, and conducting interviews with perpetrators, witnesses, and victims of torture. His story offers vital insights for human-rights scholars and professionals.

The Torture Letters

The Torture Letters PDF Author: Laurence Ralph
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022672980X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
Torture is an open secret in Chicago. Nobody in power wants to acknowledge this grim reality, but everyone knows it happens—and that the torturers are the police. Three to five new claims are submitted to the Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission of Illinois each week. Four hundred cases are currently pending investigation. Between 1972 and 1991, at least 125 black suspects were tortured by Chicago police officers working under former Police Commander Jon Burge. As the more recent revelations from the Homan Square “black site” show, that brutal period is far from a historical anomaly. For more than fifty years, police officers who took an oath to protect and serve have instead beaten, electrocuted, suffocated, and raped hundreds—perhaps thousands—of Chicago residents. In The Torture Letters, Laurence Ralph chronicles the history of torture in Chicago, the burgeoning activist movement against police violence, and the American public’s complicity in perpetuating torture at home and abroad. Engaging with a long tradition of epistolary meditations on racism in the United States, from James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time to Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me, Ralph offers in this book a collection of open letters written to protesters, victims, students, and others. Through these moving, questing, enraged letters, Ralph bears witness to police violence that began in Burge’s Area Two and follows the city’s networks of torture to the global War on Terror. From Vietnam to Geneva to Guantanamo Bay—Ralph’s story extends as far as the legacy of American imperialism. Combining insights from fourteen years of research on torture with testimonies of victims of police violence, retired officers, lawyers, and protesters, this is a powerful indictment of police violence and a fierce challenge to all Americans to demand an end to the systems that support it. With compassion and careful skill, Ralph uncovers the tangled connections among law enforcement, the political machine, and the courts in Chicago, amplifying the voices of torture victims who are still with us—and lending a voice to those long deceased.

Unjustifiable Means

Unjustifiable Means PDF Author: Mark Fallon
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1942872801
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
The book the government doesn’t want you to read. President Trump wants to bring back torture. This is why he’s wrong. In his more than thirty years as an NCIS special agent and counterintelligence officer, Mark Fallon has investigated some of the most significant terrorist operations in US history, including the first bombing of the World Trade Center and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole. He knew well how to bring criminals to justice, all the while upholding the Constitution. But in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, it was clear that America was dealing with a new kind of enemy. Soon after the attacks, Fallon was named Deputy Commander of the newly formed Criminal Investigation Task Force (CITF), created to probe the al-Qaeda terrorist network and bring suspected terrorists to trial. Fallon was determined to do the job the right way, but with the opening of Guantanamo Bay and the arrival of its detainees, he witnessed a shadowy dark side of the intelligence community that emerged, peddling a snake-oil they called “enhanced interrogation techniques.” In Unjustifiable Means, Fallon reveals this dark side of the United States government, which threw our own laws and international covenants aside to become a nation that tortured—sanctioned by the highest-ranking members of the Bush Administration, the Army, and the CIA, many of whom still hold government positions, although none have been held accountable. Until now. Follow along as Fallon pieces together how this shadowy group incrementally—and secretly—loosened the reins on interrogation techniques at Gitmo and later, Abu-Ghraib, and black sites around the world. He recounts how key psychologists disturbingly violated human rights and adopted harsh practices to fit the Bush administration’s objectives even though such tactics proved ineffective, counterproductive, and damaging to our own national security. Fallon untangles the powerful decisions the administration’s legal team—the Bush “War Counsel”—used to provide the cover needed to make torture the modus operandi of the United States government. As Fallon says, “You could clearly see it coming, you could wave your arms and yell, but there wasn’t a damn thing you could do to stop it.” Unjustifiable Means is hard-hitting, raw, and explosive, and forces the spotlight back on to how America lost its way. Fallon also exposes those responsible for using torture under the guise of national security, as well as those heroes who risked it all to oppose the program. By casting a defining light on one of America’s darkest periods, Mark Fallon weaves a cautionary tale for those who wield the power to reinstate torture.

Torture Taxi

Torture Taxi PDF Author: Trevor Paglen
Publisher: Icon Books Company
ISBN: 9781840468304
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
This is an investigative journalism in the mould of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. This is an incredible story of shadowy CIA kidnappings followed by imprisonment and torture. The secret may be out, but the horror remains in this original expose of extraordinary rendition. This is the incredible story of how the CIA's darkest secret of the War on Terror - the 'extraordinary rendition' programme - was exposed. It's no longer a secret: since 9/11, the CIA has quietly kidnapped more than a hundred people and detained them at prisons throughout the world. Often, the detainees are tortured or disappear entirely. Now infamous, the 'extraordinary rendition' programme is a key part of the largest clandestine operation since the end of the Cold War. In this shocking book, an award-winning investigative journalist and a 'military geographer' explore the programme in journeys around the world: to suburban Massachusetts to profile a CIA front company supplying the agency with planes; to North Carolina to track down the pilots; to the San Francisco suburbs to study with a planespotter who monitors the CIA's movements; and to Afghanistan, where they visit the notorious Salt Pit prison and interview released Afghan detainees. The kidnappings have not stopped. On the contrary, the rendition programme has been formalised, colluding with the military when necessary, and constantly changing its cover to remain hidden from sight. This is a chilling looking at the logistics of torture which shows how far Bush is prepared to go in the 'war on terror'.

Monstering

Monstering PDF Author: Tara McKelvey
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0786732148
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
In April 2004, the Abu Ghraib photographs set off an international scandal. Yet until now, the full story has never been told. Tara McKelvey -- the first U.S. journalist to speak with female prisoners from Abu Ghraib -- traveled to the Middle East and across the United States to seek out victims and perpetrators. McKelvey tells how soldiers, acting in an atmosphere that encouraged abuse and sadism, were unleashed on a prison population of which the vast majority, according to army documents, were innocent civilians. Drawing upon critical sources, she discloses a series of explosive revelations: An exclusive jailhouse interview with Lynndie England connects the Abu Ghraib pictures to lewd vacation photos taken by England's boyfriend Charles Graner; formerly undisclosed videotapes show soldiers "Robotripping" on cocktails of over-the-counter drugs while pretending to stab detainees; new material sheds light on accusations against an American suspected of raping an Iraqi child; and first-hand accounts suggest the use of high-voltage devises, sexual humiliation and pharmaceutical drugs on Iraqi prisoners. She also provides an inside look at Justice Department theories of presidential power to show how the many abuses were licensed by the government.

The Prevention of Torture

The Prevention of Torture PDF Author: Danielle Celermajer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108470459
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 375

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Book Description
Moving past theoretical critiques of human rights, this book considers how we might translate situational analyses of torture into effective strategies for preventing it.

Interrogation and Torture

Interrogation and Torture PDF Author: Steven J. Barela
Publisher:
ISBN: 0190097523
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 625

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Book Description
This book develops, for the first time, a comprehensive discussion regarding the legality of torture and the efficacy of interrogation. Scientific research has concluded that torture is not effective. So, what interrogational methods are effective and how does one deploy those methods in such a way that is consistent with law and morality?