A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror [Paperback]

An indispensable and riveting account of the CIA's development and use of torture, from the cold war to Abu Ghraib and beyond (Naomi Klein,The Nation).

In this revelatory account of the CIA's fifty-year effort to develop new forms of torture, historian Alfred W. McCoy locates the deep roots of recent scandals at Abu Ghraib and Guant?namo in a long-standing, covert program of interrogation.A Question of Tortureinvestigates the CIA's practice of sensory deprivation and self-inflicted pain, in which techniques including isolation, hooding, hours of standing, and manipulation of time assault the victim's senses and destroy the basis of personal identity. McCoy traces the spread of these practices across the globe, from Vietnam to Iran to Central America, and argues that after 9/11, psychological torture became the weapon of choice in the CIA's global prisons, reinforced by rendition of detainees to torture-friendly countries. Finally, McCoy shows that information extracted by coercion is worthless, making a strong case for the FBI's legal methods of interrogation.

Scrupulously documented and grippingly told,A Question of Tortureis a devastating indictment of inhumane practices that have damaged America's laws, military, and international standing.

An indispensable and riveting account
Naomi Klein,The Nation

McCoy skillfully traces the use of these [torture] methods
The New Yorker

As in his earlier work on CIA complicity in the global heroin trade, McCoy is adept at tracing the inertia of government practice; his research on the effect of torture on the Philippine armed forces likewise shows policy in practice and demonstrates that psychlCÔ