A Question Of Torture is a penetrating study of fifty years of United States involvement in torture research, practice, and propagation. Dr. McCoy, Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, isn't neutral on the subject. But his book isn't a doctrinaire rejection of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. Nor is it a compendium of tragic personal case studies. Instead, he takes advantage of his misgivings about torture to delve into its history, the whys and wherefores of state-sponsored torture, and the demonstrable results of these practices. The work he has produced is as illuminating as it is easy to read. And, supported by sixty pages of sources and notes, the book should prove useful to readers with academic interests as well.
McCoy, whose previous works include a landmark study of the heroin trade, begins with an overview of torture and its usages through the past two thousand years. Then he takes us to the early days of the Cold War and a concerted US attempt to increase intelligence yields through mind control techniques. Early on, the emphasis was on electroshock, hypnosis, psychosurgery, and drugs, including the infamous use of LSD on unsuspecting soldiers and civilians. But the results were disappointing. Researchers soon learned that sensory disorientation (hooding, manipulation of sleep, etc.) and "self-inflicted pain" (for example forcing an uncooperative subject to stand for many hours with arms outstretched) were more effective means of breaking prisoners. Augmented by fears of physical abuse, sexual humiliation, and other psychological attacks on personal and cultural identity, our government produced exactly the system on display in the Abu Ghraib abuse photographs.
But Iraq is hardly our country's maiden voyage into the application of torture on an industrial scale. During the Vietnam War, Project Phoenix, a joint CIA and Vietnamese counter-insurgency operation, resulted in the torture of tens of thousands of suspected Viet Cong and sympathizers and caused the deaths of more than 26,000 of them. In Latin America, US operatives trained and abetted right-wing military and paramilitary personnel during the dirty wars of the 1970s and 80s. We also shared our expertise with the shah of Iran's secret police and the Filipino military during the Marcos years. McCoy reports that Philippine officers trained in these "extralegal" methods, went on to lead RAM, one of the more persistent groups to seek the violent overthrow of Marcos and also his successor, Corazon Aquino.
McCoy recounts the political moves that paved the way for prisoner abuse to become US policy during the war on terror. And he documents the inability or failure of judicial, military, and congressional authorities to hold high-ranking personnel in the executive branch, CIA, military, or behavioral sciences accountable. In such an environment, he believes we should expect a continuing series of revelations concerning direct and indirect US sponsorship of torture.
Does torture work? McCoy finds little specific factual evidence to suggest the "ticking time bomb" rationale for torture on a small scale has merit. The Manila police learned of a plot to destroy several airliners from Abdul Hakim Murad's laptop computer, not from the sixty-seven days of torture that followed. Israeli claims of many suicide bombings prevented by harsh interrogation techniques boil down to one documented case. Mass torture, such as that practiced by the French in Algeria, Project Phoenix in Vietnam, the right-wing Latin American dictatorships of the Pinochet era, the shah's Iran, and the Marcos Philippines did win battles. But, in each case, the popular reaction to it contributed to losing the war.
If the "ticking time bomb" justification for torture doesn't correspond to experience and mass torture loses wars, why do governments resort to it? The reason, McCoy concludes, is not rational and not very different from kicking the dog after being barked at by the boss. "In sum, the powerful often turn to torture in times of crisis, not because it works but because it salves their fears and insecurities with the psychic balm of empowerment."
A Question Of Torture is a lucid exposure of an evil open secret and of the skeins of denial and justification swaddling it. This book deserves a wide readership and should, but probably won't, stimulate some serious national soul searching.
