Tortured Confessions: The Rumpus Interview with Justine Sharrock
In her book Tortured: When Good Soldiers Do Bad Things, journalist Justine Sharrock takes a close look at low-ranking soldiers who engaged in acts of torture.
...morePosts Tagged: the war against torture
Emails From Gitmo, Read With a Drawl
At the website for the PEN American Center they’ve posted the audio and a transcription of Jonathan Ames reading FBI emails from Guantanamo Bay. There is something strangely enlightening about Ames’ drone. It’s almost judgement-less, allowing the listener to listen to the emails and receive them in a personal, individual, way—as if they were sent […]
...moreLynndie England Sues Tortured Biographer
Former Army reservist Lynndie England, the international face of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, is suing her biographer for seizing control of what was intended to be a shared copyright. In July, writer Gary S. Winkler abruptly resigned from the limited liability corporation established to handle finances and formed his own.
...moreDirty Pictures
21-year-old student Jesse Graves started putting up graffiti to promote environmental awareness nearly two years ago, and has never been harassed or arrested. Many of his pieces remain intact on walls around the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus.
...moreDick Cheney or Sith Lord?
Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff calls the former VP a “Sith Lord” and then takes him to the mat:
...moreTotal Torture Tutorial
Mixing up your OLC memos? Can’t keep your enhanced interrogations straight? Foreign Policy, which not too long ago implemented a generally improved web redesign, has this very useful (and terrifying) timeline of torture.
...morePrivate Sector Detention
Last week Pennsylvania judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. plead guilty to illegally prosecuting minors, in order to get kickbacks from privately-run juvenile detention centers. Children were sentenced to three months incarceration for making fun of their teachers on MySpace. The judge had closed down a public detention facility in order to make way for his private business […]
...moreWWJD (What Will Jack (Bauer) Do)?
WWJD (What Will Jack (Bauer) Do)? During the presidential campaign, many people worried that a president Obama wouldn’t be able to create new jobs. But I don’t think anyone ever envisioned that in one of his first acts in office he’d actually give the ax to an entire industry. That’s exactly what happened when he […]
...moreFiction Used to Justify Real Torture
Jack Bauer, that torturing hunk of manliness whose bad days involve more nuclear weapons and sexy double agents than hangovers and parking tickets is back
...moreHow Western Pop Music is Being Used as ‘Touchless Torture’ by the American military
From Frieze Magazine: “As reported by the BBC, the Guardian, the Associated Press, Newsweek, The Nation, Mother Jones, SPIN and others (while mocked by right-wing columnists from the Chicago Tribune and The New York Sun), Western pop music has been employed to disorient, ‘prolong capture shock’ and ‘break’ detainees into confession, often through a strategic […]
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