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The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib | 
| Creators: Karen J. Greenberg, Joshua L. Dratel, Anthony Lewis
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
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Rating:  9 reviews
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 1284
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 5.3
Dimensions (in): 10.2 x 7.6 x 2.6
ISBN: 0521853249
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.931
EAN: 9780521853248
ASIN: 0521853249
Publication Date: January 26, 2005
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Product Description
The Torture Papers document the so-called 'torture memos' and reports which US government officials wrote to prepare the way for, and to document, coercive interrogation and torture in Afghanistan, Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib. These documents present for the first time a compilation of materials that prior to publication have existed only piecemeal in the public domain. The Bush Administration, concerned about the legality of harsh interrogation techniques, understood the need to establish a legally viable argument to justify such procedures. The memos and reports document the systematic attempt of the US Government to prepare the way for torture techniques and coercive interrogation practices, forbidden under international law, with the express intent of evading legal punishment in the aftermath of any discovery of these practices and policies.
Book Description
The Torture Papers document the so-called 'torture memos' and reports which US government officials wrote to prepare the way for, and to document, coercive interrogation and torture in Afghanistan, Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib. The Papers document materials that prior to publication have existed only piecemeal in the public domain.
Download Description
The Torture Papers document the so-called 'torture memos' and reports which US government officials wrote to prepare the way for, and to document, coercive interrogation and torture in Afghanistan, Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib. These documents present for the first time a compilation of materials that prior to publication have existed only piecemeal in the public domain. The Bush Administration, concerned about the legality of harsh interrogation techniques, understood the need to establish a legally viable argument to justify such procedures. The memos and reports document the systematic attempt of the US Government to prepare the way for torture techniques and coercive interrogation practices, forbidden under international law, with the express intent of evading legal punishment in the aftermath of any discovery of these practices and policies.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
An Extremely Timely Resource June 30, 2008
Ronald H. Clark (WASHINGTON, DC USA)
This very substantial (over 1242 pages) book is a treasure trove of information given all of the current attention (including Supreme Court decisions) being devoted to Gitmo detainees and issues of possible torture of alleged terroist detainees. The book consists for the most part of government memos and reports that were written to authorize and document coercive interrogation and torture in Gitmo, Afghanistan, and Abu Ghraid among other locales.
Some 28 memos are included in their entirety that cover the period from Sept. 25, 2001 into 2004. A number of reports are reproduced as well, written by the Bar of the City of New York, The American Bar Ass'n, former defense secretary Schesllinger's report on DoD detention operations, some briefing papers, DoD responses to AP reports, and the Fay/Jones report on Abu Ghraib. There simply is nothing like having the original documents at your fingertips. The book also includes a list of pertinent documents that at the time of publication had not been publicly released; most if not all of these are now available on the internet (e.g., the key John Yoo March 14, 2003 memo).
There are also helpful introductions (including a short one by Anthony Lewis of the NYT); a list of interrogation techniques; recommended readings; a listing of torture related laws and conventions; biographical sketches of the key players (except David Addington for some reason); a timeline; and some cases relevant to the incidence of torture. Also included is an afterword with some additional documents which had been released just as the book was going to press. The book nicely complements any of the current volumes out on this issue, such as Goldsmith's "The Terror Presidency" (also reviewed on Amazon). An indispensable resource in this important area.
EXCELLENT RESOURCE FOR ANYBODY WHO WANTS TO UNDERSTAND THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION August 2, 2007
Enrique Hernandez (Miami, FL)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
THE TORTURE PAPERS contains 1,242 eye-popping pages of documents--memos, legal opinions, reports, interrogation transcripts, etc.--gathered and conveniently ordered in one handy volume. The government documents show, among other things, that what happened at Abu Ghraib was not the result of a few bad apples on the nightshift, as the Pentagon has maintained, but was a result of the Bush administration's own operational rationale (i.e., by direction of the civilians installed by Bush/Cheney at the Pentagon and Justice Department). The reasoning behind both the war and the manner in which it was conducted is all laid out in amazing detail in the official documents. They themselves have provided the "smoking gun." It's all here folks, in their own words, if you take the time to read it. Unfortunately, even Democrats in Congress don't take the time, which is shamefully obvious in the congressional hearings.
Despite the extensive documentary evidence collected in this book, the Bush administration maintains that "we don't torture." Journalists don't seem to be able to cut through to the main issue, rarely--if ever--confronting Bush with the most damning documents. Moreover, journalists pose inadequate questions that fail to clarify. Just yesterday I watched Larry King interviewing Dick Cheney. Larry King brought up the subject of torture. Cheney claimed that they don't torture. Larry pressed Cheney a little and Cheney admitted that they use certain techniques, but never said what those interrogation techniques were. That was that.
But philosophers such as Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, and Ludwig Wittgenstein emphasize how different people mean vastly different things by the same words. Just because you share a word in common doesn't mean you're thinking the same thing by it. To sort out controversies, it's imperative that key terms be clarified. What does torture mean? To clarify the issue of whether we torture or not, journalists first need to establish what torture is. When Bush or Cheney claim that they don't use torture, the journalist must ask them what their working DEFINITION is: How do they define torture? There is probably a vast difference between what they mean by torture and what most Americans consider to be torture. The next step a journalist/interviewer must take is to ask whether specific acts constitute torture. Bush people might refuse to answer, saying that they don't comment about specific techniques, but it is in itself significant when they refuse to acknowledge that a specific technique, such as waterboarding or beatings, constitutes torture. Whenever SPECIFIC techniques are discussed, it makes them uncomfortable, which is exactly what the journalists should strive for on this topic.
It is often said that the President and his stooges have effectively "redefined" torture, or changed the law. Actually, what they did is REINTERPRET the law, which is vague in determining what torture is. As the documents in the book show, Bush's lawyers claim that only actions that result in organ failure or death constitute torture. If that is your definition, then the pulling out of fingernails is not torture. Thus, by simply reinterpreting the term, they can technically deny that they employ torture, but all the while they can be putting heads underwater and pulling out fingernails. The fact that the law can be so easily reinterpreted points to a severe shortcoming in the law itself, in how it is written (too much ambiguity). In any case, journalists must do a better job of establishing what the administration's working definitions of key terms are. If the Press simply did that, as well as use more documentary evidence (such as the plethora found in this book), so much more light, so much less confusion, obfuscation, and ambiguity, would result, taking the national dialogue up to a whole different level. Until then, we have books such as THE TOTURE PAPERS that gather the primary evidence on how the Bush administration has operated. Until the law is changed and made clearer in how it defines torture, Civil Rights lawyers will have an uphill battle fighting on this front. There's plenty of grounds for impeachment, though. It's a shame, in my opinion, that the Dems did not choose to bring Bush or Cheney to justice. Their actions NOW STAND AS PRECEDENT! But thanks to their own documents, at least history will record the amorality of the Bush administration in damning detail.
UPDATE: On 10/17/07, at a White House press conference, a journalist asked President Bush how he defined torture, a straightforward question. Bush's response? His definition, Bush said, was the same as the legal definition. Then he called on another journalist, running away from the question. Bush's answer was a clever, if cynical, dodge, since the ambiguity resides in how Bush's laywers INTERPRET the legal definition of torture. The definition of torture in the U.S. Code is intentionally vague, opening the way for the Bush administration's re-interpretation of the term. How Bush and his legal team interpret torture is found in Memo 14, "Standards of Conduct for Interrogation" (August 1, 2002), on page 172 of THE TORTURE PAPERS. 18 U.S.C, Sections 2340-2340A, states that for an act to constitute torture it must cause "severe physical or mental pain or suffering." But the law, at least this section of it, doesn't define "severe" or specify what acts do (or don't) constitute torture. The Bush people pounce on this vagueness and define "severe pain" by turning to another area of the law: statutes governing health care benefits which define what constitutes an "emergency medical condition for the purpose of providing health benefits." This area of the law defines "severe pain" as something that places the "health of the individual . . . (i) in serious jeopardy" or causes "(ii) serious impairment to bodily functions, or (iii) serious dysfunction of any bodily organ or part." So they apply this definition to their interpretation of torture and conclude that for an interrogation technique to constitute torture, it "must rise to the level of death, organ failure, or the permanent impairment of a significant body function." (They go on to similarly interpret "severe mental pain or suffering.") Using this perverse definition of torture, a definition that takes "severe" to mean organ failure and/or death, interrogation techniques that have traditionally been considered torture such as the pulling out of nails or the temporary cutting off of the air supply to a person's lungs are no longer considered torture. Moreover, the memo observes that "certain acts may be cruel, inhuman, or degrading, but still not produce pain and suffering of the requisite intensity to fall within Section 2340A's proscription against torture." But their definition of torture sanctions virtually all that transpired at Abu Ghraib. Yet they blamed it all on just a "few bad apples." (What a demonic lie!) When Bush claims that he defines torture the way the law defines it, he leaves unsaid how he interprets the legal definition. The old adage is true: the devil lies in the details, a fact the Bush team exploits to the hilt. Instead of asking Bush how he defines torture, probably a better way is to ask Bush and his goons to clarify how they define the phrase "severe pain" in the law. The interviewer can even anticipate the answer by directly citing what I cited above.
The Torture Papers January 10, 2007
D. Morgan
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Mostly a collection of memos. This book is only a record to let us know what some of the hub bub is all about. Let us not sweep this under the rug. This is a first step in our examination of what we are and what we may become if each citizen doesn't accept responsibility and act on what is rapidly becoming a standard operating proceedure. Does torture acheive better information, Or blind us to truth? The same amount of time spent in a search for evidence would give results. Evidence gained by torturing is an illusion that has caused the torturer to become a goon. Calling torture by some other name does not change its effect. Torture destroys its victims and demoralizes its perpetrators. For those who are pleased to dominate it gives dominance. Torture does not give facts because it is not physical evidence. The veracity of uncovered facts can not be observed, but must be further tested. Torture can destroy any resistance in the one tortured and give the dominator feelings of the power of god. The torturer is loosing the battle without physical evidence. Torturing only gives the feelings of power.
This book is the begining of the examination of official torture and might allow some of us to reconfirm that torture by any name is only the act of a despot and only dispoils free citizens.
The Torture Papers:Road to Abu Ghraib October 31, 2005
Michael J. Brady (Tucson, Arizona USA)
11 out of 13 found this review helpful
This is an excellent resource for any serious scholar or researcher dealing with the laws of war, the Iraq War or torture issues. It is a broad compilation of original source material, mostly post 9/11; with its depth (over 1200 pages), it may be too much for the casual reader (if so, try Torture and Truth, by Mark Danner), but for serious research, it is essential.
Michael J. Brady, PhD (international law)
Tucson, Arizona
Making Men Scream in Our Name September 17, 2005
Hongus
9 out of 12 found this review helpful
This comprehensive and current compilation makes clear that our government has sanctioned practices not only outlawed by international conventions against torture, to which we are signatories, but which discracefully echo the techniques of tyrants through the ages. The documentation will make it impossible for Americans to claim that they didn't know what is being done in our name. This work should be required reading for every citizen as our nation confronts an official policy that claims our only defense against terrorism is our own use of teror and torture.
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