Books: American Torture

American Torture - the new book of award winning journalist and documentary filmmaker Michael Otterman - reveals how torture became standard practice in today’s War on Terror.

The book traces the history of American torture from Nazi Germany to Guantanamo Bay. Rod Barton, former Director of Intelligence, weapons inspector and Advisor to the CIA (Iraq) describes it as an immensely disturbing story made all the more chilling by his disclosures that today these interrogation techniques are officially sanctioned under the guise of national security and that sets of rules have been developed to govern its practice. He also says that this book should be compulsory reading for everyone with concerns over human rights.

“…Michael Otterman reveals the long history of US torture. He shows how these procedures became standard practice in today’s war on terror. Initially, the US military and CIA based their techniques on the work of their enemies: the Nazis, Soviets and Chinese. Billions of dollars were spent studying, refining, then teaching these techniques to instructors at military survival schools and interrogators charged with keeping communism at bay. Along the way, the US government produced torture-training manuals that were used in Vietnam, Latin America and elsewhere. As the Cold War ended, these tortures — engineered to leave deep psychological wounds but few physical scars — were legalized using the very laws designed to eradicate their use. After 9/11, they were revived again for use on enemy combatants detained in America’s vast gulag of prisons across the globe — from secret CIA black sites in Thailand to the Pentagon’s detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba…“

The book will be released this month in Australia/New Zealand and during April 2007 in the US/UK. It has already been selected as one of the best books of 2007.

More information and additional documents on the authors book blog.