Abstract
The review of this book came before the 15th anniversary of the tragedy of 9/11 and before my visit back to Ground Zero having moved from New York to our nation’s capital months after the attack. And at the same time, the review is before the U.S. presidential elections—nearly a month and a half away. What does this all have to do with Jared Del Rosso’s book, Talking About Torture: How Political Discourse Shapes the Debate? Everything. Del Rosso, an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Denver, began the project initially as a “proposed” paper on Abu Ghraib, but then through support from Boston College and a dissertation fellowship, was able to expand the project by gaining access to government documents (p. ix). The book examines our “past” and somewhat vague policy about the issue, the politics of it all, the controversy, the human rights aspect, and how important a dialogue about torture is essential for us as a nation. Says Del Rosso, “This book is a study of the political reckoning with Abu Ghraib [prison] and the subsequent debate about U.S. torture” (p. vii). It explores “the contemporary meaning of the practice in the United States” (p. 6).
The book takes us back to April of 2004, when a segment on CBS’ 60 Minutes showed digital photos of U.S. soldiers torturing detainees at Abu Ghraib prison. The photos demonstrated “detainee abuse” and were part of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report following the crisis at the prison—and included more than “six million pages of CIA documents.” The report, as Del Rosso states, took more than 3 years to complete and “two more for declassification” (xi). From the CIA’s term, “enhanced interrogation” and what they claim was “not” torture to waterboarding and to “rectal hydration” or “rectal feeding,” Del Rosso documents and provides commentary from CIA officials, to former vice-president Dick Cheney, and the media’s important coverage.
The book details various aspects of the issue and is divided into seven chapters, followed by an Appendix on “Constructionism and the Reality of Torture.” Chapter 2 begins with the well-known photo we all know, an American working the night shift and posing with the naked detainees and one hooded detainee “standing on a box, arms by his side and electrical wires running from his body to the wall” (p. 34). After those photos were released, Del Rosso references Fox News, stating that then President George W. Bush offered an apology to the humiliated Iraqi prisoners and their families (p. 34). He emphasizes how this story changed the approval rating for the former President for the first time—below 50%. The pictures, as he mentioned, were a revelation to the public—but it still “did not provide the American public and government . . . the abuse of detainees in U.S. Custody after September 11, 2001” (p. 35). Del Rosso discusses allegations of abuse that also occurred at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn, New York. The violence at MDC was “visually” documented. Reports surfaced by the media (referencing the New York Times) and human rights organizations that suggested the detainees may have been “racially profiled” and were “held in inhumane conditions and were verbally and physically abused by correction officers and cellmates” (p. 35).
The other chapters delve into more events at Abu Ghraib, isolating incidents, the debate about “enhanced interrogation”—again, the term used by the CIA to justify “torture” and the waterboarding. In Chapter 6, Del Rosso does an excellent job describing the report and the use of waterboarding. The CIA maintained the “effectiveness” of the process. He takes us through the narrative, the public debates, and the abuse. He documents that in November of 2007,
A month before then, CIA director, Michael Hayden revealed that the CIA had destroyed tapes of its interrogations, the subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties of the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing entitled, “Torture and the Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment of Detainees: The Effectiveness and Consequences of ‘Enhanced’ Interrogations. (p. 135)
Del Rosso does such an incredible and detailed job looking at various sources about the issue of torture by also referencing Dorothy E. Smith’s Text, Facts, and Femininity: Exploring the Relations of Ruling and discusses the agency’s interrogation of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks:
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the driving force behind the 9/11 attacks, stayed quiet for months after his capture. The interrogation eventually used . . . waterboarding on him for just 90 seconds, at which point he began to reveal information that helped authorities arrest at least six major terrorists, including some who were in the process of plotting the bringing down of the Brooklyn Bridge, bombing a hotel, blowing up U.S. gas stations, poisoning American water reservoirs, detonating a radioactive dirty bomb, incinerating residential high-rise buildings by igniting apartments filled with natural gas, and carrying out large-scale anthrax attacks. (p. 135)
That prompted the ranking Republican on the subcommittee, Trent Franks, to state that the CIA’s use of “waterboarding was ‘legal’ and ‘controlled’” (p. 135). That was then. Notes Del Rosso, after President Obama won the first election, he signed an executive order “revoking the CIA’s ability to use painful interrogation techniques, and the ‘torture issue’ remained unresolved” (p. 2).
Del Rosso’s selection of materials from the report, his analysis from politicians, former CIA officials, the media, and the public provides what he said he would accomplish: the vital discussion and debate on torture.
Says Del Rosso at the end,
These are all tentative positions and ones that I do not think will satisfy those with realist leanings. . . . But I am sympathetic to those who believe that the brute fact of U.S. torture speaks for itself. We both want official denial to appear a bit less plausible, and we both are pursuing a politics that empathetically recognizes the suffering of survivors of torture. My hope is that this book will be of some use in that pursuit. (p. 188)
And it is. Del Rosso’s work is important both inside and outside the classroom—be it political communication or public opinion. It is a book that details so many dialogues about the issue of torture, often times, dialogues we ignore or hide. It is a first-rate book: educational, informative, and essential in the future of our country and world.