Read the latest news about torture and the war on Islamic extremism
“Humanity and Torture: Effective Interrogation or Brutality?”
Part of a three-part series on “Humanity and Torture,” sponsored by the Wolfson Center for National Affairs at The New School, this panel addresses difficult questions in the context of recent controversies about use of torture in interrogations of Al Qaida prisoners and others engaged in or suspected of terrorism since 9/11. As torture appears to become routine in the world in which we live, is there a “torture gene”? If terror is the enemy, is torture the response? Is torture ever morally permissible?
Check out these provocative articles about the use of torture:
- Richard Matthews (MTA): Dirty Hands, Cosmopolitan Value and State Evil: Reflections on Torture.
- Defusing the “Ticking Time Bomb” excuse: Life does not imitate “24″, and the Democratic candidates, led by Hillary Clinton, are finally learning to address the unrealistic scenarios that Republicans often use to justify torture.
- From Radical Middle, an essay on responding effectively to terrorism.
- A review of Unchecked and Unbalanced: Presidential Power in a Time of Terror by Frederick AO Schwarz, Jr. and Aziz Z Huq.
- From PUP, the introduction to Torture and Democracy by Darius Rejali (and an interview).
- Watching torture: A reporter’s reflections on “the pornography of violence“.
- A review of The Guantanamo Files: the Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison by Andy Worthington.
- The introduction to Torture and the Twilight of Empire: From Algiers to Baghdad by Marnia Lazreg.
- An interview with Tara McKelvey, author of Monstering: Inside America’s Policy of Secret Interrogations and Torture in the Terror War.
- Tom Engelhardt on how Bush took us to the dark side.
