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| mark danner torture and truth: Torture and Truth Mark Danner, 2004-10-31 Includes the torture photographs in color and the full texts of the secret administration memos on torture and the investigative reports on the abuses at Abu Ghraib. In the spring of 2004, graphic photographs of Iraqi prisoners being tortured by American soldiers in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison flashed around the world, provoking outraged debate. Did they depict the rogue behavior of a few bad apples? Or did they in fact reveal that the US government had decided to use brutal tactics in the war on terror? The images are shocking, but they do not tell the whole story. The abuses at Abu Ghraib were not isolated incidents but the result of a chain of deliberate decisions and failures of command. To understand how Hooded Man and Leashed Man could have happened, Mark Danner turns to the documents that are collected for the first time in this book. These documents include secret government memos, some never before published, that portray a fierce argument within the Bush administration over whether al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners were protected by the Geneva Conventions and how far the US could go in interrogating them. There are also official reports on abuses at Abu Ghraib by the International Committee of the Red Cross, by US Army investigators, and by an independent panel chaired by former defense secretary James R. Schlesinger. In sifting this evidence, Danner traces the path by which harsh methods of interrogation approved for suspected terrorists in Afghanistan and Guant‡namo migrated to Iraq as resistance to the US occupation grew and US casualties mounted. Yet as Mark Danner writes, the real scandal here is political: it is not about revelation or disclosure but about the failure, once wrongdoing is disclosed, of politicians, officials, the press, and, ultimately, citizens to act. For once we know the story the photos and documents tell, we are left with the questions they pose for our democratic society: Does fighting a new kind of war on terror justify torture? Who will we hold responsible for deciding to pursue such a policy, and what will be the moral and political costs to the country? |
| mark danner torture and truth: Torture and Truth Mark Danner, 2005 The revelation of widespread torture of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib shocked the world. In this, the first book of its kind, leading investigative journalist Mark Danner reveals just how complicit the US government was (and remains) in allowing and condoning such abuse. |
| mark danner torture and truth: Torture and Truth Mark Danner, 2004-10-31 Includes the torture photographs in color and the full texts of the secret administration memos on torture and the investigative reports on the abuses at Abu Ghraib. In the spring of 2004, graphic photographs of Iraqi prisoners being tortured by American soldiers in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison flashed around the world, provoking outraged debate. Did they depict the rogue behavior of a few bad apples? Or did they in fact reveal that the US government had decided to use brutal tactics in the war on terror? The images are shocking, but they do not tell the whole story. The abuses at Abu Ghraib were not isolated incidents but the result of a chain of deliberate decisions and failures of command. To understand how Hooded Man and Leashed Man could have happened, Mark Danner turns to the documents that are collected for the first time in this book. These documents include secret government memos, some never before published, that portray a fierce argument within the Bush administration over whether al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners were protected by the Geneva Conventions and how far the US could go in interrogating them. There are also official reports on abuses at Abu Ghraib by the International Committee of the Red Cross, by US Army investigators, and by an independent panel chaired by former defense secretary James R. Schlesinger. In sifting this evidence, Danner traces the path by which harsh methods of interrogation approved for suspected terrorists in Afghanistan and Guant‡namo migrated to Iraq as resistance to the US occupation grew and US casualties mounted. Yet as Mark Danner writes, the real scandal here is political: it is not about revelation or disclosure but about the failure, once wrongdoing is disclosed, of politicians, officials, the press, and, ultimately, citizens to act. For once we know the story the photos and documents tell, we are left with the questions they pose for our democratic society: Does fighting a new kind of war on terror justify torture? Who will we hold responsible for deciding to pursue such a policy, and what will be the moral and political costs to the country? |
| mark danner torture and truth: Stripping Bare the Body Mark Danner, 2011-02-15 Stripping Bare the Body shows at close hand how terrorism works and how war looks and smells and feels. Drawing on rich narratives of politics and violence and war from around the world, Stripping Bare the Body is a moral history of American power... |
| mark danner torture and truth: Spiral Mark Danner, 2016 Introduction -- Bush : imposing the exception : constitutional dictatorship, torture, and us -- Obama : normalizing the exception : terror, fear, and the war without end -- Afterword. |
| mark danner torture and truth: The Secret Way to War Mark Danner, 2006 Publisher Description |
| mark danner torture and truth: The Torture Papers Karen J. Greenberg, Joshua L. Dratel, 2005-01-03 Documents US Government attempts to justify torture techniques and coercive interrogation practices in ongoing hostilities. |
| mark danner torture and truth: The Massacre at El Mozote Mark Danner, 2005 The story of the 1989 massacre of civilians in El Salvadore by US-trained soldiers. |
| mark danner torture and truth: Standard Operating Procedure Errol Morris, Philip Gourevitch, 2012-10-31 Standard Operating Procedure is an utterly original collaboration by the writer Philip Gourevitch (We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families) and the film-maker Errol Morris (The Thin Blue Line, The Fog of War). They have produced the first full reckoning of what actually happened at Abu Ghraib. Standard Operating Procedure reveals the stories of the American soldiers who took and appeared in the haunting digital snapshots from Abu Ghraib prison that shocked the world – and simultaneously illuminates and alters forever our understanding of those images and the events they depict. Drawing on more than two hundred hours of Errol Morris’s startlingly frank and intimate interviews with Americans who served at Abu Ghraib and with some of their Iraqi prisoners, as well as on his own research, Philip Gourevitch has written a relentlessly surprising account of Iraq’s occupation from the inside-out – rendering vivid portraits of guards and prisoners ensnared in an appalling breakdown of command authority and moral order. Gourevitch and Morris have crafted a nonfiction morality play that stands to endure as essential reading long after the current war in Iraq passes from the headlines. By taking us deep into the voices and characters of the men and women who lived the horror of Abu Ghraib, the authors force us, whatever our politics, to re-examine the pat explanations in which we have been offered – or sought – refuge, and to see afresh this watershed episode. Instead of a ‘few bad apples’, we are confronted with disturbingly ordinary young American men and women who have been dropped into something out of Dante’s Inferno. This is a book that makes you think, and makes you see – an essential contribution from two of our finest nonfiction artists working at the peak of their powers. |
| mark danner torture and truth: Abu Ghraib , 2004-11-23 Abu Ghraib unveiled a lengthy list of disastrous actions and cover-ups by the Bush administration and the American military. Abu Ghraib examines the problem from many different perspectives, gathering together timely essays on the prison scandal from prominent progressive writers. Barbara Ehrenreich looks at the story through the lens of feminism, noting that the most infamous photos involve female soldiers. John Gray argues that Iraq is worse than Vietnam. Looking to future ramifications, Meron Benvenisti reflects on the powerless rage of an occupied culture. David Matlin deconstructs President Bush's declaration that the Abu Ghraib images do not represent America. Giving voice to those directly impacted, Mark Danner reports on the anger and humiliation experienced by the victims and their families. This book provides a broader understanding of the issue and its repercussions. |
| mark danner torture and truth: Torture and Eucharist William T. Cavanaugh, 1998-12-07 In this engrossing analysis, Cavanaugh contends that the Eucharist is the Church's response to the use of torture as a social discipline. |
| mark danner torture and truth: The Way of the World Ron Suskind, 2013-03-28 From Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author Ron Suskind comes a startling look at how America and the West lost their way, and at the struggles of their respective governments to reclaim the moral authority on which their survival depends. From the White House to Downing Street, and from the fault-line countries of South Asia tothe sands of Guantanamo, Suskind offers an astonishing story that connects world leaders to the forces waging today's shadow wars and to the next generation of global citizens. Tracking down truth and hope, Suskind delivers historic disclosures with this emotionally stirring and strikingly original portrait of the post 9-11 world. |
| mark danner torture and truth: Memory of Silence D. Rothenberg, 2016-04-30 This edited, one-volume version presents the first ever English translation of the report of The Guatemalan Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH), a truth commission that exposed the details of 'la violenca,' during which hundreds of massacres were committed in a scorched-earth campaign that displaced approximately one million people. |
| mark danner torture and truth: The Guantánamo Effect Laurel Emile Fletcher, Eric Stover, 2009-09-01 This book, based on a two-year study of former prisoners of the U.S. government’s detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, reveals in graphic detail the cumulative effect of the Bush administration’s “war on terror.” Scrupulously researched and devoid of rhetoric, the book deepens the story of post-9/11 America and the nation’s descent into the netherworld of prisoner abuse. Researchers interviewed more than sixty former Guantánamo detainees in nine countries, as well as key government officials, military experts, former guards, interrogators, lawyers for detainees, and other camp personnel. We hear directly from former detainees as they describe the events surrounding their capture, their years of incarceration, and the myriad difficulties preventing many from resuming a normal life upon returning home. Prepared jointly by researchers with the Human Rights Center, University of California, Berkeley, and the International Human Rights Law Clinic, University of California, Berkeley School of Law, in partnership with the Center for Constitutional Rights, The Guantánamo Effect contributes significantly to the debate surrounding the U.S.’s commitment to international law during war time. |
| mark danner torture and truth: Now They Tell Us Michael Massing, 2004-08-31 Michael Massing describes the American press coverage of the war in Iraq as the unseen war, an ironic reference given the number of reporters in Iraq and in Doha, Qatar, the location of the Coalition Media Center with its $250,000 stage set. He argues that a combination of self-censorship, lack of real information given by the military at briefings, boosterism, and a small number of reporters familiar with Iraq and fluent in Arabic deprived the American public of reliable information while the war was going on. Massing also is highly critical of American press coverage of the Bush administration's case for war prior to the invasion of Iraq: US journalists were far too reliant on sources sympathetic to the administration. Those with dissenting views—and there were more than a few—were shut out. Reflecting this, the coverage was highly deferential to the White House. This was especially apparent on the issue of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction .... Despite abundant evidence of the administration's brazen misuse of intelligence in this matter, the press repeatedly let officials get away with it. Once Iraq was occupied and no WMDs were found, the press was quick to report on the flaws of pre-war intelligence. But as Massing's detailed analysis demonstrates, pre-war journalism was also deeply flawed, as too many reporters failed to independently evaluate administration claims about Saddam's weapons programs or the inspection process. The press's postwar feistiness stands in sharp contrast to its submissiveness and meekness before the war—when it might have made a difference. |
| mark danner torture and truth: Illusions of Security Maureen Webb, 2007-02 The government is spying on us. Here's how, and what we can do about it. |
| mark danner torture and truth: Lynching Photographs Dora Apel, Shawn Michelle Smith, 2007 A lucid, smart, engaging, and accessible introduction to the impact of lynching photography on the history of race and violence in America. —Grace Elizabeth Hale, author of Making Whiteness: The Culture of Segregation in America, 1890-1940 With admirable courage, Dora Apel and Shawn Michelle Smith examine lynching photographs that are horrifying, shameful, and elusive; with admirable sensitivity they help us delve into the meaning and legacy of these difficult images. They show us how the images change when viewed from different perspectives, they reveal how the photographs have continued to affect popular culture and political debates, and they delineate how the pictures produce a dialectic of shame and atonement.—Ashraf H. A. Rushdy, author of Neo-Slave Narratives and Remembering Generations This thoughtful and engaging book offers a highly accessible yet theoretically sophisticated discussion of a painful, complicated, and unavoidable subject. Apel and Smith, employing complementary (and sometimes overlapping) methodological approaches to reading these images, impress upon us how inextricable photography and lynching are, and how we cannot comprehend lynching without making sense of its photographic representations.—Leigh Raiford, co-editor of The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory Our newspapers have recently been filled with photographs of mutilated, tortured bodies from both war fronts and domestic arenas. How do we understand such photographs? Why do people take them? Why do we look at them? The two essays by Apel and Smith address photographs of lynching, but their analysis can be applied to a broader spectrum of images presenting ritual or spectacle killings.—Frances Pohl, author of Framing America: A Social History of American Art |
| mark danner torture and truth: Getting Away with Torture Christopher H. Pyle, 2011 Follows the paper trail of torture memos that led to abuses at Guantanámo, in Afghanistan, and in Iraq. |
| mark danner torture and truth: Torture Sanford Levinson, 2004-10-28 Torture is perhaps the most unequivocally banned practice in the world today. Yet recent photographs from Abu Ghraib substantiated claims that the United States and some of its allies are using methods of questioning relating to the war on terrorism that could be described as torture or, at the very least, as inhuman and degrading. In terror's wake, the use of such methods, at least under some conditions, has gained some prominent defenders, notably from within the White House. In this revised edition, Torture: A Collection brings together leading lawyers, political theorists, social scientists, and public intellectuals to debate the advisability of maintaining the absolute ban and to reflect on what it says about our societies if we do--or do not--adhere to it in all circumstances. New to this edition are essays by Charles Krauthammer and Andrew Sullivan on the adoption in 2005 of the McCain Amendment, which explicitly bars the use of torture and other cruel methods of interrogation. |
| mark danner torture and truth: The Rape of Nanking Iris Chang, 2014-03-11 The New York Times bestselling account of one of history's most brutal—and forgotten—massacres, when the Japanese army destroyed China's capital city on the eve of World War II, piecing together the abundant eyewitness reports into an undeniable tapestry of horror. (Adam Hochschild, Salon) In December 1937, one of the most horrific atrocities in the long annals of wartime barbarity occurred. The Japanese army swept into the ancient city of Nanking (what was then the capital of China), and within weeks, more than 300,000 Chinese civilians and soldiers were systematically raped, tortured, and murdered. In this seminal work, Iris Chang, whose own grandparents barely escaped the massacre, tells this history from three perspectives: that of the Japanese soldiers, that of the Chinese, and that of a group of Westerners who refused to abandon the city and created a safety zone, which saved almost 300,000 Chinese. Drawing on extensive interviews with survivors and documents brought to light for the first time, Iris Chang's classic book is the definitive history of this horrifying episode. |
| mark danner torture and truth: The Road to Illegitimacy Mark Danner, 2004 What really happened in the 2000 presidential election - and can it happen again? It was the most tumultuous and uncertain transition of power in the history of the United States, and yet, to most Americans, what really happened in the 2000 presidential election remains unclear something went wrong in Florida, but the Supreme Court cleared it up and then, er, everyone was happy . . . right? But who actually won the Florida vote recount? What, exactly, did the Supreme Court decide? Was there truly no dissent? What role did the mass media play? In The Road to Illegitimacy, Mark Danner, a staffer for both The New Yorker and New York Review of Books, goes to Florida to report on the final, tense counting and recounting of the actual ballots mandated after the Supreme Court decision. The Road to Illegitimacy is one of three hard-hitting books published by Melville House (The Road to Illegitimacy, Irreparable Harm and The Big Chill) that take a close look at the 2000 election - based on three pieces of investigative journalism originally filed at the time, by three of the country's top journalists. These three insightful books are riveting history. But more importantly, they may help troubled A |
| mark danner torture and truth: Globalizing Torture , 2013 Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Central Intelligence Agency embarked on a highly classified program of secret detention and extraordinary rendition of terrorist suspects. The program was designed to place detainee interrogations beyond the reach of law. Suspected terrorists were seized and secretly flown across national borders to be interrogated by foreign governments that used torture, or by the CIA itself in clandestine 'black sites' using torture techniques. This report is the most comprehensive account yet assembled of the human rights abuses associated with secret detention and extraordinary rendition operations. It details for the first time the number of known victims, and lists the foreign governments that participated in these operations. It shows that responsibility for the abuses lies not only with the United States but with dozens of foreign governments that were complicit. More than 10 years after the 2001 attacks, this report makes it unequivocally clear that the time has come for the United States and its partners to definitively repudiate these illegal practices and secure accountability for the associated human rights abuses. |
| mark danner torture and truth: Chain of Command Seymour M. Hersh, 2004-09-13 Since September 11, 2001, Seymour M. Hersh has riveted readers -- and outraged the Bush Administration -- with his stories in The New Yorker, including his breakthrough pieces on the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Now, in Chain of Command, he brings together this reporting, along with new revelations, to answer the critical question of the last three years: how did America get from the clear morning when hijackers crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon to a divisive and dirty war in Iraq? Hersh established himself at the forefront of investigative journalism thirty-five years ago when he broke the news of the massacre at My Lai, Vietnam, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize. Ever since, he's challenged America's power elite by publishing the stories that others can't, or won't, tell. In exposés on subjects ranging from Saudi corruption to nuclear black marketeers and -- months ahead of other journalists -- the White House's false claims about weapons of mass destruction, Hersh has cemented his reputation as the indispensable reporter of our time. In Chain of Command, Hersh takes an unflinching look behind the public story of President Bush's war on terror and into the lies and obsessions that led America into Iraq. He reveals the connections between early missteps in the hunt for Al Qaeda and disasters on the ground in Iraq. The book includes a new account of Hersh's pursuit of the Abu Ghraib story and of where, he believes, responsibility for the scandal ultimately lies. Hersh draws on sources at the highest levels of the American government and intelligence community, in foreign capitals, and on the battlefield for an unparalleled view of a crucial chapter in America's recent history. With an introduction by The New Yorker's editor, David Remnick, Chain of Command is a devastating portrait of an Administration blinded by ideology and of a President whose decisions have made the world a more dangerous place for America. |
| mark danner torture and truth: Hitler's American Model James Q. Whitman, 2017-02-14 How American race law provided a blueprint for Nazi Germany Nazism triumphed in Germany during the high era of Jim Crow laws in the United States. Did the American regime of racial oppression in any way inspire the Nazis? The unsettling answer is yes. In Hitler's American Model, James Whitman presents a detailed investigation of the American impact on the notorious Nuremberg Laws, the centerpiece anti-Jewish legislation of the Nazi regime. Contrary to those who have insisted that there was no meaningful connection between American and German racial repression, Whitman demonstrates that the Nazis took a real, sustained, significant, and revealing interest in American race policies. As Whitman shows, the Nuremberg Laws were crafted in an atmosphere of considerable attention to the precedents American race laws had to offer. German praise for American practices, already found in Hitler's Mein Kampf, was continuous throughout the early 1930s, and the most radical Nazi lawyers were eager advocates of the use of American models. But while Jim Crow segregation was one aspect of American law that appealed to Nazi radicals, it was not the most consequential one. Rather, both American citizenship and antimiscegenation laws proved directly relevant to the two principal Nuremberg Laws—the Citizenship Law and the Blood Law. Whitman looks at the ultimate, ugly irony that when Nazis rejected American practices, it was sometimes not because they found them too enlightened, but too harsh. Indelibly linking American race laws to the shaping of Nazi policies in Germany, Hitler's American Model upends understandings of America's influence on racist practices in the wider world. |
| mark danner torture and truth: Torture John Perry, 2005 |
| mark danner torture and truth: The Dark Side Jane Mayer, 2009-05-08 The Dark Side is a dramatic, riveting, and definitive narrative account of how the United States made self-destructive decisions in the pursuit of terrorists around the world—decisions that not only violated the Constitution, but also hampered the pursuit of Al Qaeda. In spellbinding detail, Jane Mayer relates the impact of these decisions by which key players, namely Vice President Dick Cheney and his powerful, secretive adviser David Addington, exploited September 11 to further a long held agenda to enhance presidential powers to a degree never known in U.S. history, and obliterate Constitutional protections that define the very essence of the American experiment. With a new afterward. One of The New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year National Bestseller National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist A Best Book of the Year: Salon, Slate, The Economist, The Washington Post, Cleveland Plain-Dealer |
| mark danner torture and truth: Road from Ar Ramadi Camilo Mejía, 2008 The inspiring story of a soldier who, after fighting in Iraq, publicly refused to return to the war. |
| mark danner torture and truth: Freedom's Battle Gary J. Bass, 2008-08-19 This gripping and important book brings alive over two hundred years of humanitarian interventions. Freedom’s Battle illuminates the passionate debates between conscience and imperialism ignited by the first human rights activists in the 19th century, and shows how a newly emergent free press galvanized British, American, and French citizens to action by exposing them to distant atrocities. Wildly romantic and full of bizarre enthusiasms, these activists were pioneers of a new political consciousness. And their legacy has much to teach us about today’s human rights crises. |
| mark danner torture and truth: The Mauritanian Mohamedou Ould Slahi, Larry Siems, 2021-02-18 Previously published as Guantánamo Diary, this momentous account and international bestseller is soon to be a major motion picture The first and only diary written by a Guantánamo detainee during his imprisonment, now with previously censored material restored. Mohamedou Ould Slahi was imprisoned in Guantánamo Bay in 2002. There he suffered the worst of what the prison had to offer, including months of sensory deprivation, torture and sexual assault. In October 2016 he was released without charge. This is his extraordinary story, as inspiring as it is enraging. |
| mark danner torture and truth: The Condor Years John Dinges, 2012-03-13 A “compelling and shocking account” of a brutal campaign of repression in Latin America, based on interviews and previously secret documents (The Miami Herald). Throughout the 1970s, six Latin American governments, led by Chile, formed a military alliance called Operation Condor to carry out kidnappings, torture, and political assassinations across three continents. It was an early “war on terror” initially encouraged by the CIA—which later backfired on the United States. Hailed by Foreign Affairs as “remarkable” and “a major contribution to the historical record,” The Condor Years uncovers the unsettling facts about the secret US relationship with the dictators who created this terrorist organization. Written by award-winning journalist John Dinges and updated to include later developments in the prosecution of Pinochet, the book is a chilling yet dispassionately told history of one of Latin America’s darkest eras. Dinges, himself interrogated in a Chilean torture camp, interviewed participants on both sides and examined thousands of previously secret documents to take the reader inside this underground world of military operatives and diplomats, right-wing spies and left-wing revolutionaries. “Scrupulous, well-documented.” —The Washington Post “Nobody knows what went wrong inside Chile like John Dinges.” —Seymour Hersh |
| mark danner torture and truth: Cheating Justice Elizabeth Holtzman, Cynthia Cooper, 2012-02-07 President George W. Bush and Vice President Cheney deceived Congress and the people to drive us into a war in Iraq; they claimed the right to wiretap illegally and to eavesdrop on citizens; and they authorized torture, unilaterally upending laws and violating international treaty obligations. Yet, both Bush and Cheney are audaciously unapologetic about their crimes. In his recent memoir, President Bush makes no apologies for his decision to start a war in Iraq, though no weapons of mass destruction, the ostensible reason for the war, were found there. Regarding his approval of the waterboarding form of torture, he proudly said, Damn right. Time and again throughout his term, President Bush proclaimed sternly we do not torture. However, the 2009 release of secret torture documents revealed otherwise. The documents paint a bleak picture of the involvement of President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and top administration officials in unleashing, sanctioning, and conspiring in the infliction of torture. Holtzman and Cooper cite unlawful torture as only one of the many ways that the Bush-Cheney administration transgressed the law, trampled the Constitution, and harmed the image of the United States around the world. Bush and Cheney, the authors argue, authorized and condoned behavior and practices that starkly violate human-rights principles and the rights of American citizens. Congress chose not to pursue impeachment, despite multitudes of citizens advocating for it, Holtzman and Cooper among them. New revelations, however, about the extent and depth of their crimes make the need for accountability imperative. Holtzman posits that the failure to indict, prosecute, or hold accountable officials at the highest level makes a mockery of U.S. law and sets frightening precedents. With Holtzman's legal expertise and Cooper's bold journalism, Cheating Justice explains why the nation needs to address the Bush-Cheney administration's abuse of power and manipulation of the law. As a member of Congress and part of the committee that investigated and held hearings on the conduct of President Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal, Elizabeth Holtzman balks at Bush's echo of Nixon's claim that he was acting in the interest of national security. Using Watergate-era reforms as a model, Holtzman details the steps necessary to undo the damage that the Bush-Cheney administration inflicted and explains how we can establish new protections that will block future presidents from similarly abusing the law. Cheating Justice is a call to empower the American people, and a firm insistence that the nation's leaders are not above the law. |
| mark danner torture and truth: Torn from the World John Gibler, 2018-09-25 The book that most shocked me this year for its literary quality is called Tzompaxtle, although in English it has another title, Torn from the World. The author is John Gibler, a real outlaw.--Diego Enrique Osorno, author of El Cartel de Sinaloa Andres Tzompaxtle Tecpile was torn from the world. Abducted off the street, blindfolded and beaten, he was brought to a Mexican military facility and disappeared. Tzompaxtle, a young member of an insurgent guerrilla movement, was subjected to months of interrogation and torture as the military tried to extract information from him. In an effort to buy time to protect his family and comrades, and to keep himself alive, he lead his captors on fruitless journeys to abandoned safe-houses and false rendezvous locations for four months. Finally, faced with imminent execution, he decided to make what he thought was a suicidal attempt at escape; when he miraculously survived, he was able to return underground. Gleaned from years of clandestine interviews, Tzompaxtle's story offers a rare glimpse into chronic injustice, underground resistance movements, and the practice of forced disappearance and torture in contemporary Mexico. At once harrowing and humane, John Gibler's wonderful new book shines a light on the darkest corners of the Mexican justice system. We cannot turn away from what we see there. This is a brave, daring book, equal in every way to the extraordinary life it documents.--Daniel Alarcon, author of The King is Always Above the People Once in a long while a brilliant writer happens on a story he was born to tell--a story that in its stark and unremitting horror gives us a glimpse of the world as it is, unvarnished and unredeemed. John Gibler is such a writer and Torn From the World is such a story. A wrenching, astonishing tale, brilliantly told.--Mark Danner, author of The Massacre at El Mozote Torn from the World is the product of a thorough investigation and it is written with rage and humility at the same time. This is the work of one of the most important journalists of our time.--Yuri Herrera, author of Signs Preceding the End of the World John Gibler's powerful recounting of the forced disappearance of Andres Tzompaxtle Tecpile unearths the brutal machinery of state-sanctioned torture and terrorism in Mexico today. This book must provoke an outcry.--Sujatha Fernandes, author of Curated Stories Not since Rodolfo Walsh's classic Operation Massacre have I read a work of political and literary journalism as inventive and urgent as John Gibler's Torn from the World. With courage, empathy, and clear-sightedness, Gibler tackles questions most journalists won't go near.”--Ben Ehrenreich, author of The Way to the Spring: Life and Death in Palestine The North American journalist John Gibler not only presents here the guerrilla combatant's story, but also contextualized it within the broader, very troubled history of class relations in Guerrero and the contemporary proliferation of human rights abuses in Mexico, from Ayotzinapa to Ciudad.--Jesse Lerner, author of The Shock of Modernity |
| mark danner torture and truth: Assassination of a Saint Matt Eisenbrandt, 2017-01-24 A tale told well that provides valuable insights into the motives and modus operandi of the death squads in El Salvador, and of the financiers who commissioned and facilitated such crimes. It also highlights the difficulties that face those who pursue such cases many years after the crimes have taken place.—New York Review of Books On March 24, 1980, the assassination of El Salvador’s Archbishop Óscar Romero rocked that nation and the world. Despite the efforts of many in El Salvador and beyond, those responsible for Romero’s murder remained unpunished for their heinous crime. Assassination of a Saint is the thrilling story of an international team of lawyers, private investigators, and human-rights experts that fought to bring justice for the slain hero. Matt Eisenbrandt, a lawyer who was part of the investigative team, recounts in this gripping narrative how he and his colleagues interviewed eyewitnesses and former members of death squads while searching for evidence on those who financed them. As investigators worked toward the only court verdict ever reached for the murder of the martyred archbishop, they uncovered information with profound implications for El Salvador and the United States. |
| mark danner torture and truth: Paper: Paging Through History Mark Kurlansky, 2016-05-10 From the New York Times best-selling author of Cod and Salt, a definitive history of paper and the astonishing ways it has shaped today’s world. Paper is one of the simplest and most essential pieces of human technology. For the past two millennia, the ability to produce it in ever more efficient ways has supported the proliferation of literacy, media, religion, education, commerce, and art; it has formed the foundation of civilizations, promoting revolutions and restoring stability. By tracing paper’s evolution from antiquity to the present, with an emphasis on the contributions made in Asia and the Middle East, Mark Kurlansky challenges common assumptions about technology’s influence, affirming that paper is here to stay. Paper will be the commodity history that guides us forward in the twenty-first century and illuminates our times. |
| mark danner torture and truth: Break Them Down Gretchen Borchelt, 2005 This report is the first to comprehensively examine the use of psychological torture by US personnel in the so-called war on terror. It reviews the techniques used on detainees, what clinical experience and studies reveal about the long-lasting and extremely devastating health consequences of psychological torture, how a regime of psychological torture came about and was perpetuated, and what the current status of psychological torture is in US policy. Although the evidence is far from complete, what is known warrants the inference that psychological torture was central to the interrogation process and reinforced through conditions of confinement. Evidence exists of its continued use in 2004 and some practices likely remain in place to this day. ... The infamous pictures from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq indelibly brought home how severe forms of psychological coercion--detainees terrorized by snarling dogs and wires dangling from their wrists, subjected to severe sexual humiliation, and disoriented by hooding--are indeed forms of torture. What the images do not show, but what this report reveals, is that psychological torture, even if not as graphic as the images, was at the center of the treatment and interrogation of detainees in US custody in Afghanistan, Guantánamo and Iraq since 2002. Since the Abu Ghraib scandal broke a year ago, the physical abuse of detainees through beatings, use of stress positions, deprivation of food, and infliction of severely cold and hot temperatures, has understandably gained the most attention, and the United States Army has itself labeled the deaths of 26 detainees as homicides. The evidence now available from witness accounts, documents released under the Freedom of Information Act, official investigations, leaked reports from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), media reports, and inquiries by Physicians for Human Rights, shows that physical forms of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment served only to punctuate the pervasive use of psychological torture by US personnel against detainees. |
| mark danner torture and truth: The Abu Ghraib Effect Stephen F. Eisenman, 2007-04-25 The line between punishment and torture can be razor-thin—yet the entire world agreed that it was definitively crossed at Abu Ghraib. Or perhaps not. George W. Bush won a second term in office only months after the Abu Ghraib scandal was uncovered, and only the lowest-ranking U.S. soldiers involved in the scandal have been prosecuted. Where was the public outcry? Stephen Eisenman offers here an unsettling explanation that exposes our darkest inclinations in the face of all-too-human brutality. Eisenman characterizes Americans’ willful dismissal of the images as “the Abu Ghraib effect,” rooted in the ways that the images of tortured Abu Ghraib prisoners tapped into a reactionary sentiment of imperialist self-justification and power. The complex elements in the images fit the “pathos formula,” he argues, an enduring artistic motif in which victims are depicted as taking pleasure in their own extreme pain. Meanwhile, the explicitly sexual nature of the Abu Ghraib tortures allowed Americans to rationalize the deeds away as voluntary pleasure acts by the prisoners—a delusional reaction, but, The Abu Ghraib Effect reveals, one with historical precedence. From Greek sculptures to Goya paintings, Eisenman deftly connects such works and their disturbing pathos motif to the Abu Ghraib images. Skillfully weaving together visual theory, history, philosophy, and current events, Eisenman peels back the political obfuscation to probe the Abu Ghraib images themselves, contending that Americans can only begin to grapple with the ramifications of torture when the moral detachment of the “Abu Ghraib effect” breaks down and the familiar is revealed to be horribly unfamiliar. |
| mark danner torture and truth: The Lesser Evil Michael Ignatieff, 2005-09-04 Must we fight terrorism with terror, match assassination with assassination, and torture with torture? Must we sacrifice civil liberty to protect public safety? In the age of terrorism, the temptations of ruthlessness can be overwhelming. But we are pulled in the other direction too by the anxiety that a violent response to violence makes us morally indistinguishable from our enemies. There is perhaps no greater political challenge today than trying to win the war against terror without losing our democratic souls. Michael Ignatieff confronts this challenge head-on, with the combination of hard-headed idealism, historical sensitivity, and political judgment that has made him one of the most influential voices in international affairs today. Ignatieff argues that we must not shrink from the use of violence--that far from undermining liberal democracy, force can be necessary for its survival. But its use must be measured, not a program of torture and revenge. And we must not fool ourselves that whatever we do in the name of freedom and democracy is good. We may need to kill to fight the greater evil of terrorism, but we must never pretend that doing so is anything better than a lesser evil. In making this case, Ignatieff traces the modern history of terrorism and counter-terrorism, from the nihilists of Czarist Russia and the militias of Weimar Germany to the IRA and the unprecedented menace of Al Qaeda, with its suicidal agents bent on mass destruction. He shows how the most potent response to terror has been force, decisive and direct, but--just as important--restrained. The public scrutiny and political ethics that motivate restraint also give democracy its strongest weapon: the moral power to endure when the furies of vengeance and hatred are spent. The book is based on the Gifford Lectures delivered at the University of Edinburgh in 2003. |
| mark danner torture and truth: The Way to the Spring Ben Ehrenreich, 2016 In West Bank cities and small villages alike, men and women, young and old--a group of unforgettable characters--share their lives with Ehrenreich and make their own case for resistance and resilience in the face of life under occupation. Ruled by the Israeli military, set upon and harassed constantly by Israeli settlers who admit unapologetically to wanting to drive them from the land, forced to negotiate an ever more elaborate and more suffocating series of fences, checkpoints and barriers that have sundered home from field, home from home, they are a population whose living conditions are unique, and indeed hard to imagine. |
| mark danner torture and truth: Trump Revealed Michael Kranish, Marc Fisher, 2016-08-23 Who is Donald J. Trump? Despite decades of scrutiny, many aspects of his life are not well known. To discover Trump in full, The Washington Post assembled a team of ... reporters and researchers to delve into every aspect of Trump's improbable life, from his privileged upbringing in Queens to his ... 2016 rise to seize the Republican candidacy for president--Dust jacket flap. |
| mark danner torture and truth: Torture, Power, and Law David Luban, 2014-09-04 This volume brings together the most important writing on torture and the 'war on terror by one of the leading US voices in the torture debate. Philosopher and legal ethicist David Luban reflects on this contentious topic in a powerful sequence of essays including two new and previously unpublished pieces. He analyzes the trade-offs between security and human rights, as well as the connection between torture, humiliation, and human dignity, the fallacy of using ticking bomb scenarios in debates about torture, and the ethics of government lawyers. The book develops an illuminating and novel conception of torture as the use of pain and suffering to communicate absolute dominance over the victim. Factually stimulating and legally informed, this volume provides the clearest analysis to date of the torture debate. It brings the story up to date by discussing the Obama administration's failure to hold torturers accountable. |
Mark 1 NIV - John the Baptist Prepares the Way - The - Bible Gateway
Mark 1:40 The Greek word traditionally translated leprosy was used for various diseases affecting the skin.
Gospel of Mark - Wikipedia
The Gospel of Mark[a] is the second of the four canonical Gospels and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells of the ministry of Jesus from his baptism by John the Baptist to his death, the …
Mark: The Gospel According to Mark - Bible Hub
(Matthew 21:18–22; Mark 11:12–14) 20 As they were walking back in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered from its roots. 21 Peter remembered it and said, “Look, Rabbi! The fig tree You …
Mark the Evangelist - Wikipedia
Mark the Evangelist [a] (Koinē Greek: Μᾶρκος, romanized: Mârkos), also known as John Mark (Koinē Greek: Ἰωάννης Μᾶρκος, romanized: Iōánnēs Mârkos; Aramaic: ܝܘܚܢܢ, romanized: …
Book of Mark - Read, Study Bible Verses Online
According to early church tradition, Mark was written "in the regions of Italy" (Anti-Marcionite Prologue) or, more specifically, in Rome (Irenaeus; Clement of Alexandria). These same authors …
MARK Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
: an early Jewish Christian traditionally identified as the writer of the Gospel of Mark. called also John Mark
MARK CHAPTER 1 KJV - King James Bible Online
As to Christ's temptation, Mark notices his being in the wilderness and that he was with the wild beasts. It was an instance of his Father's care of him, which encouraged him the more that his …
Mark, THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK - USCCB
Jesus is the Son whom God has sent to rescue humanity by serving and by sacrificing his life (Mk 10:45). The opening verse about good news in Mark (Mk 1:1) serves as a title for the entire book. …
Mark - Wikipedia
A mark used in lieu of a signature when the signatory is incapable of signing their name.
Mark 1 - Bible Hub
9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 As soon as Jesus came up out of the water, He saw g the heavens breaking open and the Spirit …
Mark 1 NIV - John the Baptist Prepares the Way - The - Bible Gat…
Mark 1:40 The Greek word traditionally translated leprosy was used for various diseases affecting the skin.
Gospel of Mark - Wikipedia
The Gospel of Mark[a] is the second of the four canonical Gospels and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells of the ministry of Jesus from his baptism by John the Baptist to his death, the burial of his body, and the …
Mark: The Gospel According to Mark - Bible Hub
(Matthew 21:18–22; Mark 11:12–14) 20 As they were walking back in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered from its roots. 21 Peter remembered it and said, “Look, Rabbi! The fig tree You cursed has withered.” 22 …
Mark the Evangelist - Wikipedia
Mark the Evangelist [a] (Koinē Greek: Μᾶρκος, romanized: Mârkos), also known as John Mark (Koinē Greek: Ἰωάννης Μᾶρκος, romanized: Iōánnēs Mârkos; Aramaic: ܝܘܚܢܢ, romanized: Yōḥannān) or Saint Mark, was the person …
Book of Mark - Read, Study Bible Verses Online
According to early church tradition, Mark was written "in the regions of Italy" (Anti-Marcionite Prologue) or, more specifically, in Rome (Irenaeus; Clement of Alexandria). These same authors closely associate Mark's …
