Two Books Discuss Torture During the Bush Administration

Two books discuss the use of torture by the Bush Administration.

 

 In The Institutionalization of Torture by the Bush Administration Is Anyone Response? (2010Intersentia, 310 pp, ISBN 978-94-000-0100-8 €129), M Cherif Bassiouni the pre-eminent scholar in the field ofinternational criminal law, discusses how torture was started at the highest level of the U.S. government, becameofficial policy, and were carried out by the U.S. military, CIA, and private contractors in territory under U.S. control(Guantánamo Bay, Iraq, and Afghanistan), in secret prisons abroad called “black sites,” with the assistance of othergovernments under the euphemism of “extraordinary rendition.”The seven-year program involved an estimated150,000 to 200,000 persons and occurred within an ambience of general public indifference among Americans thatcoincided with unusually high amount of public support...(more)...