Torture, Terror, and Trade-Offs

Torture, Terror, and Trade-Offs PDF Author: Jeremy Waldron
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191633585
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Jeremy Waldron has been a challenging and influential voice in the moral, political and legal debates surrounding the response to terrorism since 9/11. His contributions have spanned the major controversies of the War on Terror - including the morality and legality of torture, whether security can be 'balanced' with liberty, and the relationship between public safety and individual rights. He has also tackled underlying questions essential to understanding the practical debates - including what terrorism is, and what a right to security would entail. This volume collects all Waldron's work on these issues, including six published essays and two previously unpublished essays. It also includes a new introduction in which Waldron presents an overview of his contribution, and looks at the problems currently facing the Obama administration and the UK Government in dealing with the legacy of the Bush White House. The volume will be essential reading for all those engaged with contemporary politics, security law, and the continuing struggle for an ethical response to terrorism.

Torture, Terror, and Trade-Offs

Torture, Terror, and Trade-Offs PDF Author: Jeremy Waldron
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191633585
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 368

Get Book

Book Description
Jeremy Waldron has been a challenging and influential voice in the moral, political and legal debates surrounding the response to terrorism since 9/11. His contributions have spanned the major controversies of the War on Terror - including the morality and legality of torture, whether security can be 'balanced' with liberty, and the relationship between public safety and individual rights. He has also tackled underlying questions essential to understanding the practical debates - including what terrorism is, and what a right to security would entail. This volume collects all Waldron's work on these issues, including six published essays and two previously unpublished essays. It also includes a new introduction in which Waldron presents an overview of his contribution, and looks at the problems currently facing the Obama administration and the UK Government in dealing with the legacy of the Bush White House. The volume will be essential reading for all those engaged with contemporary politics, security law, and the continuing struggle for an ethical response to terrorism.

Torture and Truth

Torture and Truth PDF Author: Mark Danner
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 612

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Book Description
Includes the torture photographs in color and the full texts of the secret administration memos on torture and the investigative reports on the abuses at Abu Ghraib. In the spring of 2004, graphic photographs of Iraqi prisoners being tortured by American soldiers in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison flashed around the world, provoking outraged debate. Did they depict the rogue behavior of "a few bad apples"? Or did they in fact reveal that the US government had decided to use brutal tactics in the "war on terror"? The images are shocking, but they do not tell the whole story. The abuses at Abu Ghraib were not isolated incidents but the result of a chain of deliberate decisions and failures of command. To understand how "Hooded Man" and "Leashed Man" could have happened, Mark Danner turns to the documents that are collected for the first time in this book. These documents include secret government memos, some never before published, that portray a fierce argument within the Bush administration over whether al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners were protected by the Geneva Conventions and how far the US could go in interrogating them. There are also official reports on abuses at Abu Ghraib by the International Committee of the Red Cross, by US Army investigators, and by an independent panel chaired by former defense secretary James R. Schlesinger. In sifting this evidence, Danner traces the path by which harsh methods of interrogation approved for suspected terrorists in Afghanistan and Guant‡namo "migrated" to Iraq as resistance to the US occupation grew and US casualties mounted. Yet as Mark Danner writes, the real scandal here is political: it "is not about revelation or disclosure but about the failure, once wrongdoing is disclosed, of politicians, officials, the press, and, ultimately, citizens to act." For once we know the story the photos and documents tell, we are left with the questions they pose for our democratic society: Does fighting a "new kind of war" on terror justify torture? Who will we hold responsible for deciding to pursue such a policy, and what will be the moral and political costs to the country?

Torture and State Violence in the United States

Torture and State Violence in the United States PDF Author: Robert M. Pallitto
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421403439
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 399

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Book Description
The war on terror has brought to light troubling actions by the United States government which many claim amount to torture. But as this book shows, state-sanctioned violence and degrading, cruel, and unusual punishments have a long and contentious history in the nation. Organized around five broad thematic periods in American history—colonial America and the early republic; slavery and the frontier; imperialism, Jim Crow, and World Wars I and II; the Cold War, Vietnam, and police torture; and the war on terror—this annotated documentary history traces the low and high points of official attitudes toward state violence. Robert M. Pallitto provides a critical introduction, historical context, and brief commentary and then lets the documents speak for themselves. The result is a nearly 400-year history that traces the continuities and changes in debates over the meaning of torture and state violence in the U.S. and shows where state actions and policies have pushed and exceeded constitutional and international normative limits. Rigorously researched—and sometimes chilling—this volume is the first comprehensive reference work on state violence and torture in the U.S.

Ethics for Enemies

Ethics for Enemies PDF Author: F. M. Kamm
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0199680590
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description
Ethics for Enemies comprises three original essays on highly contentious issues in practical moral philosophy. F. M. Kamm presents powerful arguments about the concept and morality of torture; what makes terrorism wrong and whether it is always wrong; and whether the right motivation and the proportionality of harms to good can make war just.

Why Terrorism Works

Why Terrorism Works PDF Author: Alan M. Dershowitz
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300145659
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
DIVThe greatest danger facing the world today, says Alan M. Dershowitz, comes from religiously inspired, state sponsored terrorist groups that seek to develop weapons of mass destruction for use against civilian targets. In his newest book, Dershowitz argues passionately and persuasively that global terrorism is a phenomenon largely of our own making and that we must and can take steps to reduce the frequency and severity of terrorist acts. Analyzing recent acts of terrorism and our reaction to them, Dershowitz explains that terrorism is successful when the international community gives in to the demands of terrorists—or even tries to understand and eliminate the “root causes” of terrorism. He discusses extreme approaches to wiping out international terrorism that would work if we were not constrained by legal, moral, and humanitarian considerations. And then, given that we do operate under such constraints, he offers a series of proposals that would effectively reduce the frequency and severity of international terrorism by striking a balance between security and liberty./div

The Torture Papers

The Torture Papers PDF Author: Karen J. Greenberg
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521853248
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1306

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Book Description
Documents US Government attempts to justify torture techniques and coercive interrogation practices in ongoing hostilities.

Torture Memos

Torture Memos PDF Author: David Cole
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 1595584935
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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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.

A Question of Torture

A Question of Torture PDF Author: Alfred McCoy
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
ISBN: 1429900687
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
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.

Debating Targeted Killing

Debating Targeted Killing PDF Author: Tamar Meisels
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 019090691X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
"In this "For & Against" book, Jeremy Waldron and Tamar Meisels defend competing positions on the legitimacy of targeted killing. The volume begins with a joint introduction, briefly setting out the terms of discussion, and presenting a short historical overview of the practice --i.e., what is targeted killing, and how has it been used in which conflicts and by whom. The debate opens with Meisels' defense of targeted killing as a legitimate and desirable defensive anti-terrorism strategy, in keeping with both just war theory and international law. Meisels unreservedly defends the named killing of irregular combatants, most notably terrorists, during armed conflict. Additionally, she offers a possible moral justification for rare instances of assassination outside that framework, specifically with reference to recent cases of nuclear scientists developing weapons of mass destruction for the Iranian and Syrian governments The debate continues with Waldron's arguments focusing on the dangers and the inherent wrongness of governments' having the right to maintain death lists-lists of named individuals who are to be hunted down and killed. Waldron notes the many differences between individualized targeting and ordinary combat and he resists the attempt to assimilate targeted killing to killings in combat. Waldron also cautions us to consider carefully what a world of targeted killings will be like, the many abuses it is liable to, and why we should be very cautious, morally and strategically, in our thinking about it"--

Post-Ethical Society

Post-Ethical Society PDF Author: Douglas V. Porpora
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022606252X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
We’ve all seen the images from Abu Ghraib: stress positions, US soldiers kneeling on the heads of prisoners, and dehumanizing pyramids formed from black-hooded bodies. We have watched officials elected to our highest offices defend enhanced interrogation in terms of efficacy and justify drone strikes in terms of retribution and deterrence. But the mainstream secular media rarely addresses the morality of these choices, leaving us to ask individually: Is this right? In this singular examination of the American discourse over war and torture, Douglas V. Porpora, Alexander Nikolaev, Julia Hagemann May, and Alexander Jenkins investigate the opinion pages of American newspapers, television commentary, and online discussion groups to offer the first empirical study of the national conversation about the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the revelations of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib a year later. Post-Ethical Society is not just another shot fired in the ongoing culture war between conservatives and liberals, but a pensive and ethically engaged reflection of America’s feelings about itself and our actions as a nation. And while many writers and commentators have opined about our moral place in the world, the vast amount of empirical data amassed in Post-Ethical Society sets it apart—and makes its findings that much more damning.