Exploring the US culture of torture

These dealt with key components such as the definition of “torture”, and “treatment or punishment”, the level of culpable intent, the scope and duration of the treatment, and the sending of suspects to other states. They “legalised” the current psychologically-devised torture practices based on SERE and the three Ds - “debility, dependency and dread” - and, as was intended, severely limited America's commitment to the Convention.

Since 2001 this position has been further eroded by Bush Government legal officers and department administrators, not to mention secret directives and activities.

The history of American torture after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the announcement of a “War on Terror” by President Bush, incorporated and enhanced the foundations laid during the Cold War.

Mike Otterman analyses in exhaustive detail the steps which led to the creation of a network of prisons in Afghanistan, Iraq and Cuba, where the United States now holds more than 14,000 prisoners, and routinely subjects them to ill-treatment and torture (by any reasonable definition) without legal justification or international accountability.

By claiming that America is involved in yet another “new” struggle for survival, that it is justified in doing “whatever it takes”, that its detainees are “unlawful combatants” not covered by any of the laws about justice and human rights, and that SERE-based torture was simply what President Bush called an “alternative set of procedures”, the United States Government has created and defended a widespread “culture of torture”.

The prisons at Bagram, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib now represent an appalling example of inhumanity and injustice. Moreover, as Otterman reveals, a string of Department of Justice legal opinions, a series of Defense and CIA memos and regulations, a range of Government “security” legislation and frequent “opinions” by leading office-bearers, have combined to create an entirely separate sphere of “prerogative law”, within which certain Government agencies operate, quite apart from the “normative” law protected by statute and enforced by an independent judiciary.

Within this cocoon, the CIA can torture with impunity, and act as a model for others.

One striking aspect of Otterman's book is the extent to which particular themes run consistently through his analysis of American torture, linking the decades of the Cold War with the current War on Terror.

Another is the extent of the information available about the torture of a whole series of individuals, whose treatment Otterman uses to illustrate the practices being researched and put into training manuals by the “experts”.

Finally, Otterman uses the evidence to substantiate a series of hard-hitting points by way of conclusion. Torture is both immoral and illegal. Torture is self-defeating: it abandons moral authority and generates fresh enemies. Torture is unnecessary: it can never supply the vital clue in the so-called “ticking bomb” scenario. Torture does not yield reliable information: it inevitably produces confessions designed to please interrogators and stop the pain. It is worth noting that this has always been known. Torture is corruptive: it spreads beyond its confines and corrupts its users. Finally, SERE techniques constitute torture, despite all the euphemisms, and they profoundly disrupt the body and mind, leaving permanent damage.

This is an impressive book, which casts a harsh light on an area of modern conflict with critical human rights implications. It also illustrates an old adage: “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Torquemada and the authors of Malleus Maleficarum would be at home in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and the CIA.