Grab Instantly Truth, Torture, And The American Way: The History And Consequences Of U.S. Involvement In Torture Brought To You By Jennifer K. Harbury Published As Interactive EBook
telling look into the US's role in perpetuating human rights abuses from the Latin American Dirty Wars to todays wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, sitelinkJennifer Harbury peppers her insightful analysis with personal narratives of torture survivors, including her own experiences as the widow of a victim of torture during Guatemala's civil war.
Harbury concludes her expose of US complicity in and use of torture tactics with an in depth analysis of the ramifications of such actions drawing on insights from domestic, military, and international law, as well as exploring the geopolitical ramifications of the US normalization of the use of torture.
Although over a decade old, Gina Haspel's impending confirmation as acting CIA Director is just the latest of many examples of the unfortunately ongoing relevance of the issues raised in this book.
If you can't stomach the horrors of what this book shares, then don't pick it up, This is not for the faint of heart, It is really grueling to read what people have shared in this book, It is horrible to imagine the torture that women, mean amp children went through amp actually lived to tell about it, But that is actually not the worst part, They sometimes relive what they suffered over amp over again to then wish they were dead instead, Learning about the ways that the US actually allowed torture to happen on it's own watch is mortifying, It is so upsetting to read how this has been going on for decades amp not just in recent wars in the Middle East, I really can't even express my shock while reading this book, It is so alarming that despite torture being illegal, it still continues as if nobody is following
the rules amp it's just when it pleases the people in the FBI, CIA amp military.
It is such an eyeopener but at the same time you can't help but wonder how the hell they keep getting away with this, It just turns my stomach that this is the norm, Read this for my American Political Systems class, . .
If you can get yourself to see the Oscar nominated follow up to an Oscar winning Enron: sitelinkThe Smartest Guys in the Room documentarian's work Taxi to the Dark Side it has been highly recommended to me amp covers the changing "definition" and dare I say "policy" of torture in the postclimes as it examines the investigation into the homicide of an innocent taxi driver at the Bagram Air force Base in Afghanistan.
The title tells it all, Painful to read we never learn, from our mistakes or others, Lather, rinse, repeat. Ive read enough about US human rights abuses after/that Im starting to be able to be discerning about the individual books, This was good, but it was also the weakest to date, Perhaps this was due to itspublication Jane Mayers comparable book The Dark Side wasnt out till, so maybe Harbury had access to less information so early in the war.
The best part of the book was the description of the CIAs involvement in destabilizing Latin America, I was aware that America was involved in toppling some governments but didnt know anything about the torture that happened on our dime, so that was really eyeopening.
The Latin American parts were actually the prime example used to display the USs involvement in torture, Very important background for a book primarily about CIAs abuse of prisonersother books Ive read the aforementioned Dark Side, the Senate Intelligence Committees Torture Report, etc, didnt even mention this extremely relevant information in their own examinations of CIAs actions in the war on terror,
Strong proponent of the topdown explanation of torture, while I generally lead toward the bottomup explanation,
Grievances:
In need of a proofreadera number of little forgotten words that resulted in clouding the meaning of some sentences, not capitalizing things like Army or IDF, “courtmartials” instead of “courtsmartial”, etc.
Theres a little acknowledgment of how the MPs at Abu Ghraib of course committed abuses and should be held accountable, but I found the author really passed the buck onto the CIA, asking things like how lowly MPs could possibly have developed these “sophisticated” torture techniques on their own.
CIA and the militarys uses of torture in the war are related yet distinct problemseach should be acknowledged in discussion of the other, but they are distinct problems that deserve their own analyses.
Related, the treating of torture techniques, specifically those used in Latin America, as “highly sophisticated,” when in fact beatings, rapes, and dunking peoples heads in water go way back in human history.
Torture is generally basic and any idiot can do it,
Clearly written by a lawyer instead of an academic or journalist, The tone reminded me more of a persuasive essay than an examination of events that occurred, Excusable, given her husband was a victim of these atrocities,
Overall, a good introduction to Americas recent history of torture, but if youre already wellversed in the human rights violations during the war on terror, the analysis may leave you wanting.
Highly recommend. This book is still very relevant today, Jennifer Harbury's investigation into torture began when her husband disappeared in Guatemala inshe told the story of his torture and murder in Searching for Everardo, For over a decade since, Harbury has used her formidable legal, research, and organizing skills to press for the U, S. government's disclosure of America's involvement in harrowing abuses in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, A draft of this book had just been completed when the first photos from Abu Ghraib were published tragically, many of Harbury's deepest fears about America's own abuses were graphically confirmed by those horrific images.
This urgently needed book offers both welldocumented evidence of the CIA's continuous involvement in torture tactics since thes and moving personal testimony from many of the victims.
Most important, Harbury provides solid, convincing arguments against the use of torture in any circumstances: not only because it is completely inconsistent with all the basic values Americans hold dear, but also because it has repeatedly proved to be ineffective: Again and again,'information' obtained through these gruesome tactics proves unreliable or false.
Worse, the use of torture by U, S. client states, allies, and even by our own operatives, endangers our citizens and especially our troops deployed internationally, .