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Harbury, Jennifer K. Truth, Torture and the American Way: The History and Consequences of U.S. Involvement in Torture.


Harbury, Jennifer K. Truth, Torture and the American Way: The History and Consequences of U.S. Involvement in Torture. Boston. Beacon Press. 2005. Paper $14.00.

Harbury provides historical evidence of CIA's involvement in torture tactics since the 1970s. "Truth Torture and the American Way" successfully documents the connection between the torture in Vietnam and Latin America, and now moving to not just Abu Ghraib, but to Guantanamo. By tracing back the grave violations of both international and American laws exemplified by the notorious torture in Abu Ghraib to earlier American adventures in Vietnam and later in Latin America, it brilliantly deconstructs the "a few bad apples" argument.

Harbury documents the similarity in the extraordinary torture techniques, like stress and duress duress n. the use of force, false imprisonment or threats (and possibly psychological torture or "brainwashing") to compel someone to act contrary to his/her wishes or interests. If duress is used to get someone to sign an agreement or execute a will, a court may find them null and void. A defendant in a criminal prosecution may raise the defense that others used duress to force him/her to take part in an alleged crime., the water pit, the water boarding, the practice of rendition, that is, the abduction of "suspects" by the American Administration and turning them over to countries where torture is officially tolerated. Not only that a number of the torture techniques were developed in Vietnam, then brought to Central and Latin America and eventually to Iraq by U.S. intelligence forces (the iconic photograph of the hooded Iraqi prisoner, with wires standing on the box at Abu Ghraib is known in intelligence circles as the Vietnam position), but also, as Harbury indicates, a torture tradition evolved and has been institutionalized (the infamous School of the Americas) and reinforced unlawfully by a parallel system of authorization (Attorney General Gonzales declaring obsolete the Geneva Agreement regarding prisoners of war prisoners of war, in international law, persons captured by a belligerent while fighting in the military. International law includes rules on the treatment of prisoners of war but extends protection only to combatants. This excludes civilians who engage in hostilities (by international law they are war criminals; see war crimes) and forces that do not observe conventional requirements for combatants (see war, laws of).) that bypasses the law and tolerates torture.

Harbury's account on torture in Abu Ghraib stops short of uncovering its systemic origin. Nonetheless, Truth, Torture and the American Way is well documented with twenty cases and a variety of torture techniques, highly informative in its historical approach, and has the virtue of deconstructing an otherwise accepted myth that survives on criminalizing few scapegoats.
COPYRIGHT 2006 Association of Arab-American University Graduates
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 2006, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.

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Title Annotation:BOOKS IN BRIEF--SUMMER AND FALL 2006
Publication:Arab Studies Quarterly (ASQ)
Date:Jun 22, 2006
Words:309
Previous Article:Tareq Y. Ismael and Jacqueline Ismael. The Iraqi Predicament: People in the Quagmire of Power Politics.
Next Article:Lynch, Marc. Voices of the New Arab Public: Iraq, Al-Jazeera and Middle East Politics Today.(BOOKS IN BRIEF--SUMMER AND FALL 2006)



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