The Torture Debate in America

by Edited by Karen J. Greenberg

• ISBN13: 9780521857925
• ISBN10: 0521857929
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-11-21
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

As a result of the work assembling the documents, memoranda, and reports that constitute the material in The Torture Papers the question of the rationale behind the Bush administration's decision to condone the use of coercive interrogation techniques in the interrogation of detainees suspected of terrorist connections was raised. The condoned use of torture in any society is questionable but its use by the United States, a liberal democracy that champions human rights and is a party to international conventions forbidding torture, has sparked an intense debate within America. The Torture Debate in America captures these arguments with essays from individuals in different discipines. This volume is divided into two sections with essays covering all sides of the argument from those who embrace absolute prohibition of torture to those who see it as a viable option in the war on terror and with documents complementing the essays.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
List of Contributors	xi
Introduction: The Rule of Law Finds Its Golem: Judicial Torture Then and Now	1	(12)
Karen J. Greenberg
THE ISSUES
Torture: The Road to Abu Ghraib and Beyond	13	(22)
Burt Neuborne
Dana Priest
Anthony Lewis
Joshua Dratel
Major Michael (Dan) Mori
Stephen Gillers
ESSAYS
Section One: Democracy, Terror and Torture
Liberalism, Torture, and the Ticking Bomb	35	(49)
David Luban
How to Interrogate Terrorists	84	(14)
Heather MacDonald
Torture: Thinking about the Unthinkable	98	(13)
Andrew C. McCarthy
The Curious Debate	111	(7)
Joshua Dratel
Is Defiance of Law a Proof of Success? Magical Thinking in the War on Terror	118	(18)
Stephen Holmes
Through a Mirror, Darkly: Applying the Geneva Conventions to ``A New Kind of Warfare''	136	(15)
Scott Horton
Speaking Law to Power: Lawyers and Torture	151	(11)
Richard B. Bilder
Detlev F. Vagts
Torture: An Interreligious Debate	162	(21)
Joyce S. Dubensky
Rachel Lavery
Section Two: On the Matter of Failed States, The Geneva Conventions, and International Law
Unwise Counsel: The War on Terrorism and the Criminal Mistreatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody	183	(20)
David W. Bowker
Rethinking the Geneva Conventions	203	(11)
Lee A. Casey
David B. Rivkin, Jr.
If Afghanistan Has Failed, Then Afghanistan Is Dead: ``Failed States'' and the Inappropriate Substitution of Legal Conclusion for Political Description	214	(9)
David D. Caron
War Not Crime	223	(6)
William H. Taft IV
Section Three: On Torture
Legal Ethics and Other Perspectives	229	(7)
Jeffrey K. Shapiro
Legal Ethics: A Debate	236	(5)
Stephen Gillers
The Lawyers Know Sin: Complicity in Torture	241	(6)
Christopher Kutz
Renouncing Torture	247	(6)
Michael C. Dorf
Reconciling Torture with Democracy	253	(3)
Deborah Pearlstein
Great Nations and Torture	256	(5)
M. Cherif Bassiouni
Section Four: Looking Forward
Litigating Against Torture: The German Criminal Prosecution	261	(6)
Michael Ratner
Peter Weiss
Ugly Americans	267	(16)
Noah Feldman
RELEVANT DOCUMENTS
Taft--Haynes March 22, 2002 Memo Re: President's Decision about Applicability of Geneva Conventions to al Qaeda and Taliban	283	(34)
William Taft IV
William Haynes
Bybee--Gonzales August 1, 2002 Memo Re: Standards of Conduct for Interrogation, aka the ``Torture Memo''	317	(44)
Jay Bybee
Alberto Gonzales
Levin--Comey December 30, 2004 Memo Re: Legal Standards Applicable Under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2340--2340A	361	(16)
Daniel Levin
James B. Comey
JAG Memos Re: Recommendations of the Working Group to Assess the Legal, Policy and Operational Issues Relating to Interrogation of Detainees Held by the U.S. Armed Forces in the War on Terrorism, February--March 2003	377	(18)
Jack Rives
Michael Lohr
Kevin Sandkuhler
Thomas Romig
AFTERTHOUGHT
To the American People: Report upon the Illegal Practices of the United States Department of Justice	395	(10)
Zechariah Chafee
Felix Frankfurter
Ernst Freund
Roscoe Pound
Index	405