Goya’s Ghosts
Having carried some of the images of Francisco Goya’s Disasters of War in my mind from an early age, it …
Category Archives: Torture
Empire Then, Empire Now
Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee My rating: 4 of 5 stars I’ve been re-reading this justly famous novel …
The Wound: Algeria then, Afghanistan now…
The Wound /Des Hommes, is an absolutely remarkable novel from Laurent Mauvignier, his seventh [now up to eleven] in the …
Exit the Glories of Empire
Rumors of the glorious British Empire persist, the benevolence of the colonial rule, the improvement in the lives of the …
The Gatekeepers: An Israeli Documentary
The Gatekeepers, an Israeli documentary by Dror Moreh is a coup most film makers could only dream of: not only …
Zero Dark Thirty: Normalizing Torture
I have posted previously that after a thorough examination of reviews and opinions about Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty, I …
The Devil You Don’t Know: Going Back to Iraq — Zuhair Al-Jezairy
Iraq is, in the words of Zuhair al-Jezairy in The Devil You Don’t Know, his memoir/reportage of returning there after 25 …
In The Country of Men – Hisham Matar, Libya
The news from Libya this month is increasingly grim. It turns out it is extremely difficult merely to protect civilians. …
Torture Applause
Read this at your own risk. “From the moment a soldier enlists, we inculcate loyalty, duty, honor, integrity, and selfless …
Fear Up Harsh
Tony Lagouranis was a soldier. An American soldier. An American soldier who tortured Iraqis. He conducted mock executions, forced men …
Monstering
I heard Tara Mckelvey, the author of Monstering: Inside America’s Policy of Secret Interrogations and Torture in the Terror War, …
Enhanced Interrogation
The phrase “Verschärfte Vernehmung” is German for “enhanced interrogation”. Other translations include “intensified interrogation” or “sharpened interrogation”. It’s a phrase …