A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation from the Cold War to the War on Terror (American Empire Project)

An indispensable and riveting account of the CIAs development and use of torture from the cold war to Abu Ghraib and beyond (Naomi Klein The Nation)In this revelatory account of the CIAs fifty-year effort to develop new forms of torture historian Alfred W. McCoy locates the deep roots of recent scandals at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo in a long-standing covert program of interrogation. A Question of Torture investigates the CIAs practice of sensory deprivation and self-inflicted pain in which techniques including isolation hooding hours of standing and manipulation of time assault the victims senses and destroy the basis of personal identity. McCoy traces the spread of these practices across the globe from Vietnam to Iran to Central America and argues that after 9/11 psychological torture became the weapon of choice in the CIAs global prisons reinforced by rendition of detainees to torture-friendly countries. Finally McCoy shows that information extracted by coercion is worthless making a strong case for the FBIs legal methods of interrogation.Scrupulously documented and grippingly told A Question of Torture is a devastating indictment of inhumane practices that have damaged Americas laws military and international standing.