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Torture and Democracy
This is the most comprehensive, and most comprehensively chilling, study of modern torture yet written. Darius Rejali, one of the world's leading experts on torture, takes the reader from the late nineteenth century to the aftermath of Abu Ghraib, from slavery and the electric chair to electrotorture in American inner cities, and from French and British colonial prison cells and the Spanish-American War to the fields of Vietnam, the wars of the Middle East, and the new democracies of Latin America and Europe.
As Rejali traces the development and application of one torture technique after another in these settings, he reaches startling conclusions. As the twentieth century progressed, he argues, democracies not only tortured, but set the international pace for torture. Dictatorships may have tortured more, and more indiscriminately, but the United States, Britain, and France pioneered and exported techniques that have become the lingua franca of modern torture: methods that leave no marks. Under the watchful eyes of reporters and human rights activists, low-level authorities in the world's oldest democracies were the first to learn that to scar a victim was to advertise iniquity and invite scandal. Long before the CIA even existed, police and soldiers turned instead to "clean" techniques, such as torture by electricity, ice, water, noise, drugs, and stress positions. As democracy and human rights spread after World War II, so too did these methods.
Rejali makes this troubling case in fluid, arresting prose and on the basis of unprecedented research--conducted in multiple languages and on several continents--begun years before most of us had ever heard of Osama bin Laden or Abu Ghraib. The author of a major study of Iranian torture, Rejali also tackles the controversial question of whether torture really works, answering the new apologists for torture point by point. A brave and disturbing book, this is the benchmark against which all future studies of modern torture will be measured.
1120281584
Torture and Democracy
This is the most comprehensive, and most comprehensively chilling, study of modern torture yet written. Darius Rejali, one of the world's leading experts on torture, takes the reader from the late nineteenth century to the aftermath of Abu Ghraib, from slavery and the electric chair to electrotorture in American inner cities, and from French and British colonial prison cells and the Spanish-American War to the fields of Vietnam, the wars of the Middle East, and the new democracies of Latin America and Europe.
As Rejali traces the development and application of one torture technique after another in these settings, he reaches startling conclusions. As the twentieth century progressed, he argues, democracies not only tortured, but set the international pace for torture. Dictatorships may have tortured more, and more indiscriminately, but the United States, Britain, and France pioneered and exported techniques that have become the lingua franca of modern torture: methods that leave no marks. Under the watchful eyes of reporters and human rights activists, low-level authorities in the world's oldest democracies were the first to learn that to scar a victim was to advertise iniquity and invite scandal. Long before the CIA even existed, police and soldiers turned instead to "clean" techniques, such as torture by electricity, ice, water, noise, drugs, and stress positions. As democracy and human rights spread after World War II, so too did these methods.
Rejali makes this troubling case in fluid, arresting prose and on the basis of unprecedented research--conducted in multiple languages and on several continents--begun years before most of us had ever heard of Osama bin Laden or Abu Ghraib. The author of a major study of Iranian torture, Rejali also tackles the controversial question of whether torture really works, answering the new apologists for torture point by point. A brave and disturbing book, this is the benchmark against which all future studies of modern torture will be measured.
This is the most comprehensive, and most comprehensively chilling, study of modern torture yet written. Darius Rejali, one of the world's leading experts on torture, takes the reader from the late nineteenth century to the aftermath of Abu Ghraib, from slavery and the electric chair to electrotorture in American inner cities, and from French and British colonial prison cells and the Spanish-American War to the fields of Vietnam, the wars of the Middle East, and the new democracies of Latin America and Europe.
As Rejali traces the development and application of one torture technique after another in these settings, he reaches startling conclusions. As the twentieth century progressed, he argues, democracies not only tortured, but set the international pace for torture. Dictatorships may have tortured more, and more indiscriminately, but the United States, Britain, and France pioneered and exported techniques that have become the lingua franca of modern torture: methods that leave no marks. Under the watchful eyes of reporters and human rights activists, low-level authorities in the world's oldest democracies were the first to learn that to scar a victim was to advertise iniquity and invite scandal. Long before the CIA even existed, police and soldiers turned instead to "clean" techniques, such as torture by electricity, ice, water, noise, drugs, and stress positions. As democracy and human rights spread after World War II, so too did these methods.
Rejali makes this troubling case in fluid, arresting prose and on the basis of unprecedented research--conducted in multiple languages and on several continents--begun years before most of us had ever heard of Osama bin Laden or Abu Ghraib. The author of a major study of Iranian torture, Rejali also tackles the controversial question of whether torture really works, answering the new apologists for torture point by point. A brave and disturbing book, this is the benchmark against which all future studies of modern torture will be measured.
Darius Rejali is professor of political science at Reed College and an internationally recognized expert on modern torture. He is the author of Torture and Modernity: Self, Society, and State in Modern Iran.
Table of Contents
Preface xv Acknowledgments xix
Introduction 1 Historical Claims 3 Puzzles and Cautions 5 The Priority of Public Monitoring 8 Variations among States 11 Variations within States 15 National Styles of Stealth Torture 16 Torture and Democracy 21 Does Torture Work? 23 Who Cares? 25
Part I: Torture and Democracy 33
Chapter 1: Modern Torture and Its Observers 35 Defining Torture 36 Monitoring Torture 39
Chapter 2: Torture and Democracy 45 The National Security Model 46 The Juridical Model 49 The Civic Discipline Model 55 Hell Is in the Details 60
Part II: Remembering Stalinism and Nazism 65 Introduction 67
Chapter 3: Lights, Heat, and Sweat 69 Sweating and Stealth in America 70 British Psychological Techniques 74 Interrogation Elsewhere in Europe 76 Sweating and Stealth in Russia 79 The Spread of the Russian Style 83 Remembering Pavlov 87
Chapter 4: Whips and Water 91 Labussie're's List 92 Documenting Nazi Torture 93 Torture in Germany 95 Torture in Nazi-Occupied Europe 97 Remembering the War 104
Chapter 5: Bathtubs 108 Masuy's Bathtub 109 Marty's Magneto 111 The French Gestapo and Electric Torture 112 The Decline of Sweating and Stealth 115 The German Gestapo and Modern Torture 117 Remembering Nuremberg 117 The Search for Electric Torture 118
Part III: A History of Electric Stealth 121
Chapter 6: Shock 123 The AC/DC Controversy and the Electric Chair 124 The Mystery of Electric Death 126 Early Police Devices 128 The Mystery of Shock 132 Early Medical Devices 135 Transmitting Shock 138 Later Medical Devices 139 Remembering the Animals 141
Chapter 7: Magnetos 144 What Is a Magneto? 145 Indochina, 1931 146 Out of Indochina 149 Korea, 1931 150 Out of Korea 152 The Lost History of the Magneto 155 French and British Electrotorture after World War II 157 The Colonial Police and Wuillaume's List 160 The Triumph of the Ge´ge'ne 161 Algeria, 1960 163 Remembering the Gestapo 165
Chapter 8: Currents 167 South Vietnamese Torture 170 Vietnam, 1968 172 Bell Telephone Hour 174 Out of Vietnam Again 178 Variation within the French Style 183 Cattle Prods 185 The Electric Cornucopia 186 Remembering Vietnam 188
Chapter 9: Singing the World Electric 190 When Electrotorture Was New 190 Explaining Clean Electrotorture 194 Crafting Electrotorture 197 Surging Forward 201 The Americas 203 Middle East and North Africa 207 Asia 209 Sub-Saharan Africa 211 Europe and Central Asia 214 Explaining the Surge 216 Remembering the Cold War 222
Chapter 10: Prods, Tasers, and Stun Guns 225 Electric Utopia 225 Electric-Free Protest 227 Stun Technology 229 Covering America 230 Remembering Eutopia 237
Chapter 11: Stun City 239 Magneto Torture in Chicago 240 Stun and Torture 242 Tasers and Torture 245 Burning Issues 248 Stun and Democracy 249 But No One Died 252 Civic Shock 253 Welcome to Stun City 255
Part IV: Other Stealth Traditions 259 Introduction 261
Chapter 12: Sticks and Bones 269 Clean Whipping 269 Paddles 271 Beating Feet 273 Remembering Slaves and Sailors 277
Chapter 13: Water, Sleep, and Spice 279 Pumping 280 Choking 281 Showers and Ice 285 Salt and Spice 287 Deprivation of Sleep 290 Remembering the Inquisition 292
Chapter 14: Stress and Duress 294 Great and Lesser Stress Traditions 295 British Stress Tortures 296 French Stress Tortures 301 American Stress Tortures 306 Authoritarian Adaptations 311 Remembering the Eighteenth Century 314
Chapter 15: Forced Standing and Other Positions 316 Old Users after the War 317 Positional Tortures in the Communist World 322 Positional Tortures in the Non-Communist World 324 The Universal Distributor Hypothesis Revisited 329 Remembering the Hooded Men 332
Chapter 16: Fists and Exercises 334 Clean Beating 335 Adapting "the Necktie" 341 Exhaustion Exercises 342 Remembering the Grunts and the Cops 345
Chapter 17: Old and New Restraints 347 Bucking (the Parrot's Perch) 347 The Crapaudine 349 Standing Handcuffs 350 Sweatboxes 351 Adapting Old Restraints 353 The Shabeh 354 Remembering the Allied POWs 357
Chapter 18: Noise 360 Low-Technology Noise 360 High-Technology Noise 363 The CIA and Sensory Deprivation Boxes 368 Beyond the Laboratory 371 Principles and Guinea Pigs 373 Remembering Evil 384
Chapter 19: Drugs and Doctors 385 Police and Drugs 386 The CIA and Drugs 388 The Decline of Pharmacological Torture 390 Soviet Pharmacological Torture 392 Communist Pyschoprisons 394 Lines of Defense 397 Remembering the Prison Doctors 401 V Politics and Memory 403
Chapter 20: Supply and Demand for Clean Torture 405 Historical Claims 406 The Priority of Public Monitoring 409 Variations among and within States 414 National Styles of Stealth Torture 419 The Strength of Low Technology 423 The Power of Whispers 426 Why Styles Change 434 Disciplinary Interventions 439 The Demand for Torture 444
Chapter 21: Does Torture Work? 446 Can Torture Be Scientific? 447 Can Torture Be Restrained? 450 Does Technology Help? 453 Can Torture Be Professionally Conducted? 454 Works Better Than What? 458 Is Anything Better Than Nothing? 460 How Well Do Interrogators Spot the Truth? 463 How Well Do Cooperative Prisoners Remember? 466 How Good Is the Intelligence Overall? 469 Even When Time Is Short? 474 Remembering the Questions 478
Chapter 22: What the Apologists Say 480 Remembering the Battle of Algiers 481 Information in the Battle of Algiers 482 French Interrogation Units 485 Coerced Information in the Algerian War 487 Saving Innocents, Losing Wars 492 Gestapo Stories 493 Stories from the Resistance 495 CIA Stories 500 The Interrogation of Al Qaeda 503 Abu Ghraib and Guanta´namo 508 Afghanistan 511 Testimonial Literature from Other Conflicts 513 Remembering Abu Ghraib 518
Chapter 23: Why Governments Don't Learn 519 How Knowledge Does Not Accumulate 520 How Knowledge Is Not Analyzed 521 How Torture Warrants Might Help 523 Regulating Torture 526 Variations in Regulative Failure 529 Stealth and the Regulation of Torture 532 How Knowledge Does Not Matter 533 Remembering the Soldiers 535
Chapter 24: The Great Age of Torture in Modern Memory 537 The Great Rift 538 The Architecture of Amnesia 540 The Designs of Genius 542 Demons in the City 543 Algerian Souvenirs 545 Caring for the Memories 550
Appendixes A: A List of Clean Tortures 553 B: Issues of Method 557 C: Organization and Explanations 566 D: A Note on Sources for American Torture during the Vietnam War 581
Darius Rejali has written a superb genealogy of modern torture. Meticulously researched and filled with surprising insights, Rejali's indictment derives its power from thoughtful analysis and deep historical grounding. It is the best book on the subject that I have encountered. No one should debate the merits of torture without having read it. — Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch
Martha Huggins
This is a timely and extraordinarily important book, an unprecedented study of torture and its technologies, and of the relationship between torture and types of political systems. The research that went into this book is beyond impressive; it is thorough beyond belief. Torture and Democracy will become a reference for anyone who wants to understand torture. Darius Rejali is to be congratulated. — Martha Huggins, Tulane University
Edward Peters
Torture and Democracy brings the fact of torture straight home to democratic societies—societies that are the most reluctant to acknowledge the presence of torture in their midst. Darius Rejali's theme is the appeal of stealth forms of torture in democracies, but he also illuminates the culture of disinformation, self-deluding euphemisms, and outright mythology that accompanies these kinds of torture. Rejali's research has been truly formidable. He has read more widely in more disciplines than any analyst of torture that I know of. — Edward Peters, author of "Torture"
Philip Zimbardo
Darius Rejali has given the world an extraordinary work of scholarship and personal passion that no one wants to hear about but that everyone must learn about. Torture and Democracy exposes the core issues facing every nation whose deepest values of human dignity are defiled by its state-sanctioned 'violence workers.' Beyond platitudes, this pioneering expert descends into the torture dungeons around the world to reveal the strategies and tactics secretly used to break human will to resist. A vital book for anyone wanting to understand the whys and hows of torture being practiced today by our own government. — Philip Zimbardo, author of "The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil"
From the Publisher
"Darius Rejali has written a superb genealogy of modern torture. Meticulously researched and filled with surprising insights, Rejali's indictment derives its power from thoughtful analysis and deep historical grounding. It is the best book on the subject that I have encountered. No one should debate the merits of torture without having read it."—Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch
"Darius Rejali has given the world an extraordinary work of scholarship and personal passion that no one wants to hear about but that everyone must learn about. Torture and Democracy exposes the core issues facing every nation whose deepest values of human dignity are defiled by its state-sanctioned 'violence workers.' Beyond platitudes, this pioneering expert descends into the torture dungeons around the world to reveal the strategies and tactics secretly used to break human will to resist. A vital book for anyone wanting to understand the whys and hows of torture being practiced today by our own government."—Philip Zimbardo, author of The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil
"Torture and Democracy brings the fact of torture straight home to democratic societies—societies that are the most reluctant to acknowledge the presence of torture in their midst. Darius Rejali's theme is the appeal of stealth forms of torture in democracies, but he also illuminates the culture of disinformation, self-deluding euphemisms, and outright mythology that accompanies these kinds of torture. Rejali's research has been truly formidable. He has read more widely in more disciplines than any analyst of torture that I know of."—Edward Peters, author of Torture
"This is a timely and extraordinarily important book, an unprecedented study of torture and its technologies, and of the relationship between torture and types of political systems. The research that went into this book is beyond impressive; it is thorough beyond belief. Torture and Democracy will become a reference for anyone who wants to understand torture. Darius Rejali is to be congratulated."—Martha Huggins, Tulane University
"Torture and Democracy is a provocative, state-of-the-art consideration of what Rejali calls 'stealth' or 'clean' torture. He makes a powerful case that democracies tend to be laboratories for these forms of torture and that one of the unintended consequences of democratization is that torture, rather than being eliminated, becomes harder to identify and document."—Austin Sarat, Amherst College
Sidney Blumenthal
Monumental. Definitive. Devastating.
Austin Sarat
Torture and Democracy is a provocative, state-of-the-art consideration of what Rejali calls 'stealth' or 'clean' torture. He makes a powerful case that democracies tend to be laboratories for these forms of torture and that one of the unintended consequences of democratization is that torture, rather than being eliminated, becomes harder to identify and document. — Austin Sarat, Amherst College
