Torture and Impunity: The U.S. Doctrine of Coercive Interrogation

422 Pages·2012·2.26 MB·English

by  Alfred W. McCoy

Torture and Impunity
Critical Human Rights
Series Editors
(cid:2)
Steve J. Stern Scott Straus
Books in the series Critical Human Rights emphasize research that opens
new ways to think about and understand human rights. The series values
in particular empirically grounded and intellectually open research that es-
chews simplifi ed accounts of human rights events and processes.
Torture, the application of extreme pain and isolation to destroy the integrity
of the person, is a classic human rights issue. The method is physically brutal,
but the point is often psychological—dread, degradation, and inner shatter-
ing. In this book Alfred W. McCoy reveals the conditions that give rise to
torture and the mechanisms that permit impunity. He breaks new ground by
analyzing psychological torture as such; by tracing the role of U.S. offi cials, the
CIA, and scientists in its development from the 1950s to the present; and by
probing its voyeuristic, erotic, and empowering impacts on perpetrators and
observers. The result is a unique historical critique of torture and the culture
of impunity that allowed such systematic abuse in the U.S. and abroad, from
the Cold War through Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.
Torture and Impunity
The U.S. Doctrine of
Coercive Interrogation
Alfred W. McCoy
The University of Wisconsin Press
The University of Wisconsin Press
1930 Monroe Street, 3rd Floor
Madison, Wisconsin 53711- 2059
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Copyright © 2012
The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any format or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,
or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without written permission of the University
of Wisconsin Press, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews.
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
McCoy, Alfred W.
Torture and impunity: the U.S. doctrine of coercive interrogation / Alfred W. McCoy.
p. cm.—(Critical human rights)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978- 0- 299- 28854- 9 (pbk. : alk. paper)—ISBN 978- 0- 299- 28853- 2 (e- book)
1. Torture—United States—History. 2. Torture—Government policy—United States. 3. Military
interrogation—United States—History. 4. Impunity—United States. 5. United States. Central
Intelligence Agency. I. Title. II. Series: Critical human rights.
HV8599.U6M34 2012
364.6'7—dc23
2011043916
For Maria Elena Ang and the many victims of torture,
whose courageous testimony will one day end this inhumane
practice.

Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Abbreviations xvii
Introduction 3
1. The CIA’s Pursuit of Psychological Torture 16
2. Science in Dachau’s Shadow 53
3. Torture in the Crucible of Counterinsurgency 85
4. Theater State of Terror 114
5. The Seduction of Psychological Torture 151
6. The Outcast of Camp Echo 188
7. Psychological Torture and Public Forgetting 216
Notes 269
Bibliography 335
Index 371
vii

Illustrations
U.S. military police and prisoners at Camp X- Ray,
Guantanamo 30
Sixteenth- century judicial manual showing how
interrogators practiced torturae Gallicae ordinariae
(ordinary French torture) 41
Isolation cubicle for volunteers in Dr. Hebb’s
experiments in sensory deprivation 65
Col. Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan in a 1986
studio photograph 139
Surrendered coup leader Gregorio “Gringo”
Honasan in a 1995 campaign poster 146
Hooded Iraqi detainee, Abu Ghraib prison 152
Jack Bauer of the FOX Television show 24 169
Scene from the 1964 fi lm Goldfi nger 172
Scene from the 2006 fi lm Casino Royale 173
Scene from the 2004 fi lm The Passion of the Christ 174
Congregation in Sydney, Australia, protests the
incarceration of David Hicks 213
David Hicks at book signing with his father
Terry Hicks 214
Blacked out passages in the memoirs of FBI
counterterror agent Ali Soufan 258
ix