"A Question of Torture"

Paper Summary:

The paper discusses McCoy's purpose in writing the book "A Question of Torture", which is to reveal the CIA's 50-plus year history of utilizing torture against others and to argue that America is misusing her power. The paper outlines the main ideas contained in this work and shows how it raises many questions, principally why the American people seem largely disinterested about the use of torture and the human rights violations. The paper opines that the author's thesis is very well supported.

From the Paper:

"The author shows that initially, the CIA torture process came into being as a reaction to the Soviet Union's KBG, and was created to help insure the safety of the nation when it was clear the Soviet Union was developing deep intelligence and spy networks geared at undermining the U.S. In an interview about the book he states, "In the deepest darkest days of the Cold War initially as a defensive move, the CIA launched a massive mind control project to crack the code of human consciousness, a veritable Manhattan project of the mind with research expenses reaching up to $1 billion a year" (Jones, 2006). Researchers discovered that psychological techniques as simple as sensory deprivation and isolation could break down a victim in as little as 48 hours. The problem was, some of the people were so debilitated they "confessed" to things that did not actually occur, simply to stop the psychological process (Jones, 2006). This is one of the problems with torture like this, as the author shows throughout this book."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Jones, T. (2006). Hicks 'severely damaged', says CIA expert. Retrieves 21 July 2008 from the Information Clearinghouse Web site: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13597.htm.
• McCoy, A.W. (2006). A question of torture: CIA interrogation from the Cold War to the War on Terror. New York: Metropolitan Books.
• Wolff, B. (2006). Author explores CIA connections to torture tactics. Retrieved 21 July 2008 from the University of Wisconsin Web site: http://www.news.wisc.edu/11995.

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