Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and the Betrayal of American Values

by Philippe Sands

book data

21 ratings, 3.67 average rating, 7 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		19%
4		38%
3		33%
2		9%
1		0%

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published

May 13th 2008 by Palgrave Macmillan

binding

Hardcover, 272 pages

isbn

0230603904 (isbn13: 9780230603905)

description

On December 2, 2002 the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, signed his name at the bottom of a document that listed eighteen techniques of int...more

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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 96)

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06/17/09

Ed rated it:

bookshelves: torture

A bit overly detailed, as the author recounts how the civilian leadership of the Rumsfeld/Bush defense department first authorized torturing captives at Guantanamo and then attempted to back away from responsibility for giving the orders. Sands shows how the orders themselves were greater violations of the Geneva Convention, the precedents of the Nuremburg trails and the U.N. Convention against Torture than were the activities of the interrogators at the prison.

He recounts every mee...more

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02/12/09

Emily Flynn rated it:

bookshelves: currently-reading

Read in February, 2009

This is soooo good. I usually hate name game books about political anything because I have such a hard time keeping up, but this is really really interesting. For a lawyer, Sands is completely readable without trying to prose it up too much or keep his recounting parched and distanced. I admire his objectiveness regarding certain questions and his methodology makes it so that you're not coming into this pointing fingers all over the place. Obv., if you pick this u, you're brining some heurist...more

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03/31/09

fbuser1577326143 rated it:

Torture doesn't work. Information gleaned from such methods is not reliable and will not stand up in court. Also, it makes the prisoner crazy and that means testimony is not valid.

Sounds cool to some because the terrorists are cruel and lack integrity, blowing up innocents. But it's not effective if what you want is to find them guilty and legally punish them.

Amazing that the president was so willing to go outside of the Geneva Convention. Gives one pause. Had no idea a...more

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07/03/08

Jonathan rated it:

bookshelves: contemporary-america

Read in July, 2008

recommends it for: patriots

A measured but forceful book. Philippe Sands, an international law professor, is not shy about his own evaluation of the case; he argues that top Bush administration lawyers are vulnerable to prosecution for human rights crimes. But he makes his case pretty carefully. He weaves together the publicly available facts about the "torture memos," the record of the 54-day interrogation of Mohammed al-Qahtani, and the story of his own investigation of the matter. He interviewed key figures in...more A measured but forceful book. Philippe Sands, an international law professor, is not shy about his own evaluation of the case; he argues that top Bush administration lawyers are vulnerable to prosecution for human rights crimes. But he makes his case pretty carefully. He weaves together the publicly available facts about the "torture memos," the record of the 54-day interrogation of Mohammed al-Qahtani, and the story of his own investigation of the matter. He interviewed key figures in the case -- including Douglas Feith and William Haynes, although Haynes placed the entirety of his interviews off the record. Their subordinates and rivals were also sometimes eager to talk to Sands, looking for a chance to clear their own reputations.

Several things are clear from Sands' investigation. When civilians at the Pentagon put together their guidelines for rough interrogation in late 2002, they deliberately excluded the military's own uniformed lawyers as well as lawyers at the State Department from involvement. The Pentagon ignored the most common interpretations of both international and US law, exposing American personnel to criminal prosecution. It ignored the demands of the trained interrogators of the FBI and NCIS, who objected strongly to what they saw in Cuba. In approving its 18 harsh interrogation techniques, the Pentagon placed no limits on using them together or over extended periods of time -- a key omission. It claimed that abusive interrogation produced crucial intelligence, but so far there is no public evidence that this is the case, and expert interrogators at the FBI think that it is unlikely (in fact, they consider these methods counterproductive). It claimed that the harsh interrogation techniques originated on the ground at the Guantanamo prison, whereas Sands produces evidence that the Guantanamo interrogators and commanders were responding to strong pressure from above. And as Sands points out, the memos authorizing harsh interrogation at Guantanamo Bay could be interpreted as sanctioning many of the ugliest abuses that are known to have occurred at Abu Ghraib in Iraq.(less)

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06/30/09

Beth639 rated it:

Read in January, 2008

Eye-opening and disturbing. I heard Doug Feith talk after reading this. He explains it all away as "you had to be there to understand the pressure we were under" all the while showing a slide show of him with important people to impress us.

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12/29/08

Diane rated it:

If you want to understand more detail on the issues surrounding the Bush administration's endorsement of torture at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, read this book, written in a journalistic style.

An eye opener!

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