“American Torture,” by Michael Otterman; Pluto Press, 2007.

For most Americans, the disturbing images released in 2004 from Abu Ghraib, the notorious United States-run prison in Iraq, were the first evidence they had seen that their country conducts systematic, highly organized, brutal torture. But the fact is, as Michael Otterman so thoroughly documents in “American Torture,” U.S. military and intelligence services have engaged in codified, state-sanctioned torture for more than a half-century.

Otterman begins his dismal investigation more than 60 years ago, at the beginning of the Cold War, when the United States began developing torture techniques with the same single-mindedness, determination and Yankee know-how that it used when developing the atom bomb that ended World War II and started the Cold War. As an amateur on the torture scene — but an eager student — the U.S. looked to the experts, Russia and China, for the underpinnings of its torture program.

The CIA — surprise! — was at the forefront of torture research, looking variously at pharmaceutical, electrical and psychological means of extracting information from subjects. From there it was just a short hop to more sophisticated stress situations: sleep deprivation, forced standing, sensory deprivation and hypothermia.

By the 1950s, the U.S. Army was conducting “stress inoculation schools” where soldiers were exposed to torture techniques to “toughen them up” so they could withstand torture in the event of capture. It was a fertile proving ground for experimentation in advanced torture techniques and probably only resulted in a few thousand cases of post-traumatic stress syndrome in participants, a syndrome that did not officially exist back then.

Otterman coolly, with a journalist’s detachment and clear, purposeful prose, follows the codification of torture in the U.S. military and intelligence services. From there, once you’ve written the book on torture, the logical next step is to export it. So the U.S. sent torture trainers carrying torture manuals, like missionaries carrying a kind of anti-Bible, to Latin America, to Uruguay, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.

Subsequently, torture as an export product and legitimate policy of U.S. military and intelligence services was blessed by presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and, more recently, taken to new heights by our current commander and chief, George W. Bush. Under G.W., torture has been redefined, much in the way “sex” was redefined by Bill Clinton.

Today, torture is only “torture” if it causes lasting physical or psychological damage (skin scars don’t count), and then only if the interrogator who used, say, waterboarding techniques, intended to inflict lasting psychological or physical damage on the interrogatee. Of course, no interrogator would intentionally seek to hurt his target, he would only follow the prescribed guidelines of his government to extract the information necessary to fight an imaginary war on terror, right?

As Otterman points out, torture is the worst way to try to extract information (see interview with the author below). Indeed, he lauds the FBI’s use of nonviolent rapport-building tactics as yielding 1) more useful information, and 2) yielding information that will stand up in a court of law because it was not extracted via violations of a subject’s human rights. That’s why George Bush cannot allow Guantanamo detainees to go to trial — they’ve been tortured and their admissions of guilt, like their proclamations of innocence, were extracted under duress.

“American Torture” is an easy book to read, insofar as it is well-written and well-organized. But it is a difficult book to read insofar as it provides a glimpse into the horrors of torture perpetrated by American soldiers and civilians, and condoned and encouraged by their government.

If you love America and what it ostensibly stands for — fairness, freedom, justice for all — then read this book. But if you don’t want to end up hating your country because it engages in inhuman and barbaric modes of torture that deny fairness, freedom, justice for all, and you don’t want to be left howling with inchoate anger and helpless frustration, don’t read it.

Frankly, I’d rather deal with the permanent damage inflicted by “American Torture” on my psyche than live in benighted ignorance of the damage our nation wreaks on human beings in captivity every day.

Interview with “American Torture” author Michael Otterman

Pensito Review had an opportunity to ask Michael Otterman about his new book, “American Torture.” Otterman is a native New Yorker (born and raised) and wrote the bulk of the book as his masters thesis. We caught up with him in Sydney, Australia.

Pensito Review: How did you become interested in the topic of torture, American-style?

Michael Otterman: I got interested in the topic itself in April 2004, when the Abu Ghraib images were first released. I began researching the scandal as part of my Masters in Peace and Conflict Studies degree at the University of Sydney that I was completing at the time. The small university paper grew into my thesis, then I just kept writing till it took the form of a book.

PR: The book obviously was exhaustively researched and well-documented. How long did it take you to write it?

MO: All up, it took me two-and-a-half years — from mid-2004 till the end of 2006.

PR: Are there still topics that you wish you could have explored, but were prevented because the source material remains classified?

MO: I should note that my book relies exclusively on declassified U.S. government docs — studies, reports, transcripts, memos, etc. I was surprised actually just how much these documents reveal. Take for instance the 1963 Kubark manual or the 1983 Human Exploitation manual.

These are very detailed CIA interrogation handbooks — each with entire chapters devoted to “coercive techniques.” These manuals were formally declassified in 1997, with very few redactions. On the other hand, there are still documents that have not come to light. Many, in fact, were destroyed in the 1970s, especially those dealing with CIA-sponsored human experimentation.

I’ve made many FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] requests to the CIA, some documents were turned over to me, though others have not [been]. In particular, the agency was reluctant in releasing a CIA paper entitled “Hostile Control and Interrogation Techniques,” written in the 1950s. The only conclusion that I can draw from this denial due to “national security concerns” is that the techniques described in this document are similar to the classified ones authorized for use today. I would expect these methods to be psychological tortures I discuss in the book, namely sensory deprivation, forced standing, humiliation, etc.

PR: What was the most unexpected finding in your research?

MO: The fact that the CIA maintained in the late 1950s a safe-house in New York City, then later San Francisco, where agents would lure unsuspecting Americans so they [could] be dosed surreptitiously with LSD was quite interesting. In fact, the discovery that covert CIA funding of LSD research in U.S. universities likely jump-started counterculture interest in the drug was truly fascinating.

PR: Do you think anything can be done to stop the American government from employing torture techniques, or has it become simply too ingrained in our military and intelligence systems?

MO: Torture has been with us since day one, used throughout history to punish, terrorize and extract information. Torture will continue to be used as a means of terror — it works exceedingly well towards this end.

I do believe that awareness about the history of U.S. use of torture will turn people away from relying on it to extract information. The history shows that torture is actually the worst way to interrogate a prisoner and prevent the next 9/11. Though getting people in power to realize this is a different situation.

There are signs that awareness is slowly beginning to spread, even in U.S. government circles. For instance, the Intelligence Science Board recently reported that American psychological tortures are “outmoded, amateurish and unreliable.” See their report here
or the New York Times story on it.

PR: What is the one message you want your American readers to take away from your book?

MO: Apart from providing a larger context to the Abu Ghraib scandal and abuses at Guantanamo, I’d like to make clear that torture, especially psychological torture, should be dropped by U.S. intelligence agencies and replaced with the more reliable “rapport-building” methods favored by FBI. Torture is counterproductive, it radicalizes enemies, puts our soldiers at greater risk, destroys our moral high ground and in the end, makes us less safe.

Does torture work? OK, well it “works” if you want a false confession — this is why Stalin favored these very methods (sensory deprivation, induced hypothermia, forced standing). But, these methods do not ensure accurate and reliable information. Under torture, people say anything to stop the sensation of pain. They say things they believe the interrogator wants to hear — not necessarily the truth.

The last chapter of the book, “The Dual State,” clearly lays out an array of conclusions about torture, using the history of American use of torture since 1945 as a guide. The paragraphs begin with the following sentences in bold:

• Torture is self-defeating.
• Torture is unnecessary.
• Torture does not yield reliable information.
• Torture is corruptive.
• SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) techniques constitute torture.
• SERE techniques profoundly disrupt the body and mind.

The last section simply ends as the book begins, with the story of Mamdouh Habib — a tragic, cautionary account of the real human cost of torture.

For the latest from Michael Otterman, visit: www.americantorture.com