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18 Dec 2007 03:35 pm
The Perils Of Legalizing Torture
Darius Rejali, who knows more about the history and sociology of torture than anyone I know of, has a must-read piece on how torture has often begun in democratic societies. Money quote:
When we examine the history of modern torture technique by technique -
and there are dozens of examples - we find that newer, "cleaner"
tortures first appear in conditions of public monitoring, usually in
democratic states. It is only afterward that we find authoritarian
states adopting them.
If the spread of torture techniques suggests a blurry line between "us"
and "them," it also teaches that there's no real boundary between
"there" and "here." It would be ignoring history to assume that what
happens in an American-run prison in Iraq will stay in Iraq. Soldiers
who learn torture techniques abroad get jobs as police when they
return, and the new developments in torture you read about today could
yet be employed in a neighborhood near you.
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