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Michael Otterman is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney, as well as an award-winning journalist and filmmaker.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Covering Torture
Simple question: Who is driving the torture debate? I thought it would be helpful to give a brief, non-exhaustive overview of the current landscape.
Newspapers
The New York Times and Washington Post have dominated coverage. Last month, a NYT story on page A1 above the fold discussed the torture of an American contractor in Iraq-- by American troops. The following day, another NYT piece on page A1 exposed the failures of the Dept. of Justice (DOJ) to investigate allegations of CIA torture. (To date, the DOJ has not prosecuted one CIA officer accused of torture.) Meanwhile, at the Washington Post, Dana Priest has dominated the issue. In fact, she'll likely take home a Pulitzer this year for her work on rendition and CIA blacksites. Priest is no newcomer to the torture debate. In the mid 1990s, she blew the lid off School of the Americas torture training and the Army's Project X. Check out some of her older pieces here and here.
Magazines
Newsweek, Time and the New Yorker are commendable here. During the Cold War, Newsweek peeled back the secrecy surrounding military 'torture schools'-- programs known today as SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape). Strong coverage continues today. (The mag did retract a story in 2005 about Koran desecration at Guantanamo-- a decision I believe was due more to political pressure than the facts. More here.) Time's coverage is also noteworthy. Last year they acquired an actual interrogation logbook documenting the torture of Mohammad al Qahtani-- the so-called 20th hijacker. (The document is downloadable from the Documents section of this site). Finally, there is the New Yorker. Seymour Hersh, of My Lai fame, and Jane Mayer cover torture for the mag. Hersh led the pack on Abu Ghraib while Jane Mayer was the first to uncover the sinister links between SERE schools and torture in Guantanamo, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Web
Salon is the undisputed online leader on the torture issue. They've devoted more space to torture than any other online outlet. In fact, Salon was the first site to post the full set of Abu Ghraib photos. Of course, the torture debate rages in the blogosphere as well. Leading the way here is Andrew Sullivan. Sullivan, in his blog, the Daily Dish, closely tracks the debate and injects it with a unflinching humanity-- eloquently exposing what America has lost by turning to torture. I must also mention Balkinization. Jack Balkin, Marty Lederman, and Sandy Levinson have tag-teamed this issue from top to bottom. If you are new to their site, skip directly to the indispensable 'Anti-Torture Memo' collection of essays, commentary and quips.
Human Rights Organizations
CCR, ACLU, HRF, HRW, PHR -- get familiar with these acronyms. They are, respectively, the Center for Constitutional Rights, American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights First, Human Rights Watch, and Physicians for Human Rights. Each organization has devoted invaluable amounts of resources to the torture issue. For example, last month CCR filed war crimes charges against Donald Rumsfeld and other top administration officials (plus DOJ lawyers) in a German court. (Check out their website for more info.) Also worth noting here is the ACLU's searchable library of torture-related documents. The site contains over 10,000 files declassified by the government after a 2003 Freedom of Information Act request.
This list can go on and on-- but I think I've covered the most important sources. Where do you turn for reliable coverage of the torture debate? Let me know in the comments section below.
Newspapers
The New York Times and Washington Post have dominated coverage. Last month, a NYT story on page A1 above the fold discussed the torture of an American contractor in Iraq-- by American troops. The following day, another NYT piece on page A1 exposed the failures of the Dept. of Justice (DOJ) to investigate allegations of CIA torture. (To date, the DOJ has not prosecuted one CIA officer accused of torture.) Meanwhile, at the Washington Post, Dana Priest has dominated the issue. In fact, she'll likely take home a Pulitzer this year for her work on rendition and CIA blacksites. Priest is no newcomer to the torture debate. In the mid 1990s, she blew the lid off School of the Americas torture training and the Army's Project X. Check out some of her older pieces here and here.
Magazines
Newsweek, Time and the New Yorker are commendable here. During the Cold War, Newsweek peeled back the secrecy surrounding military 'torture schools'-- programs known today as SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape). Strong coverage continues today. (The mag did retract a story in 2005 about Koran desecration at Guantanamo-- a decision I believe was due more to political pressure than the facts. More here.) Time's coverage is also noteworthy. Last year they acquired an actual interrogation logbook documenting the torture of Mohammad al Qahtani-- the so-called 20th hijacker. (The document is downloadable from the Documents section of this site). Finally, there is the New Yorker. Seymour Hersh, of My Lai fame, and Jane Mayer cover torture for the mag. Hersh led the pack on Abu Ghraib while Jane Mayer was the first to uncover the sinister links between SERE schools and torture in Guantanamo, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Web
Salon is the undisputed online leader on the torture issue. They've devoted more space to torture than any other online outlet. In fact, Salon was the first site to post the full set of Abu Ghraib photos. Of course, the torture debate rages in the blogosphere as well. Leading the way here is Andrew Sullivan. Sullivan, in his blog, the Daily Dish, closely tracks the debate and injects it with a unflinching humanity-- eloquently exposing what America has lost by turning to torture. I must also mention Balkinization. Jack Balkin, Marty Lederman, and Sandy Levinson have tag-teamed this issue from top to bottom. If you are new to their site, skip directly to the indispensable 'Anti-Torture Memo' collection of essays, commentary and quips.
Human Rights Organizations
CCR, ACLU, HRF, HRW, PHR -- get familiar with these acronyms. They are, respectively, the Center for Constitutional Rights, American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights First, Human Rights Watch, and Physicians for Human Rights. Each organization has devoted invaluable amounts of resources to the torture issue. For example, last month CCR filed war crimes charges against Donald Rumsfeld and other top administration officials (plus DOJ lawyers) in a German court. (Check out their website for more info.) Also worth noting here is the ACLU's searchable library of torture-related documents. The site contains over 10,000 files declassified by the government after a 2003 Freedom of Information Act request.
This list can go on and on-- but I think I've covered the most important sources. Where do you turn for reliable coverage of the torture debate? Let me know in the comments section below.