Description of American Methods.
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Abner Louima. Abu Ghraib. The Humboldt Five. Extraordinary Rendition. Lynchings.
School Of The Americas. Prison Rape.
Whether or not it makes front-page news, make no mistake: Torture is an everyday
tool of dominance and terror in the United States. On the heels of Our Enemies
in Blue, his controversial chronicle of policing, Kristian Williams once again
upsets the notion that “excessive force” by the state is anything
but altogether American.
American Methods is a damning audit of the US record in underwriting
human rights violations around the globe. In the last 25 years alone and under
several administrations, we confront death squads in El Salvador, genocidal
campaigns in Turkey, brutal interrogations done on our dime, even in our name
by various “friendly governments,” and more. Returning to our shores,
Williams observes the banality of violence at home—on both sides of the
prison wall. What emerges is the distinct character of American torture, particularly
its emphasis on sexual violence, misogyny, and racialized spectacle.
Ultimately, American Methods offers devastating conclusions about
the centrality of rape, racism, and conquest to both the state and our national
culture.
Praise
"In horrifyingly impeccable detail, author Kristian Williams argues that US policymaking, even before Sept. 11, actually pivots on the use of torture. He shows how US torture tactics in Iraq, Guantánamo Bay, Afghanistan, and US prisons are strikingly similar, employing systematized racism, misogyny, and rape ... American Methods cogently gives the reader evidence of how the US uses torture to control society and to protect US hegemony, compelling us to rethink power and to question the terror enacted in the name of democracy."
—ColorLines
“Kristian Williams peels away the mythic veneer of American Innocence
with an eloquence, power, and precision that stands largely unrivaled. The result
is a book which not only deserves, but quite literally demands inclusion among
the handful of works essential to understanding where it is we find ourselves
at this awful moment in history. Read it if you dare, and especially if you
don’t.”
—Ward Churchill, author of A Little Matter of Genocide
and On the Justice of Roosting Chickens
“American Methods shines an unmediated light on this country’s
use of torture as an essential component of social control, both at home and
abroad. Williams’s exhaustive analysis exposes a history of routine brutality
in US police, military, and prison interrogation practices. He deftly makes
the case that the Abu Ghraib scandal was not an aberrant experiment...
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Table of Contents
Introduction: Beyond Scandal
PART I: AMERICA ABROAD
Chapter 1: Inside Abu Ghraib
Chapter 2: A “New Paradigm”
Chapter 3: Ethics and Emergencies
Chapter 4: Torture and Empire
PART II: BACK HOME
Chapter 5: Homeland Brutality
Chapter 6: Tools of the Trade
Chapter 7: The Centrality of Rape
Conclusion: Torture, Terror, and the State
Bibliographic Essay
Index
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Excerpt
Chapter Seven
The Centrality of Rape
On August 9, 1997, Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant, was arrested outside
a Brooklyn nightclub following an altercation between police and some number
of the patrons there. Louima was not involved in the conflict, but police mistook
him for another man who had been fighting. The officers who transported Louima
to the precinct stopped twice en route and beat him. Later, inside the station
house, Officer Justin Volpe removed Louima from his cell and led him to a bathroom.
While another cop held Louima down, Volpe shoved a broken broom handle into
his ass, and then into his mouth.
Louima was returned to the holding cell, until other inmates complained that
he was bleeding. He was then moved to a hospital, where a nurse reported the
abuse to Internal Affairs. Among Louima's injuries: a ruptured bladder, a torn
colon, and broken teeth.
The response of the authorities was surprisingly swift. Officer Volpe was arrested
and charged with violating Louima's civil rights. Officer Charles Schwarz, who
was accused of holding Louima down, was also arrested, as were Officers Thomas
Wiese and Thomas Bruder, who were charged with obstructing justice. Volpe pled
guilty and was sentenced to thirty years.
This outcome was virtually unique among the many high-profile brutality cases
under the watch of New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who was in office between
1994 and ...
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Video
Kristian Williams at Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, WA (2006)
http://fora.tv/2006/06/16/Kristian_Williams
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Press Release
For Immediate Release
Contact: Jocelyn Burrell, jocelyn@southendpress.org
AMERICAN METHODS
Torture and the Logic of Domination
by Kristian Williams
“I’m told that these photographs that are coming
out now are nothing more than the same things that came out before, if not identical
of the same type of behavior.” —Donald Rumsfeld, 2/16/06
More of the same. So went the offcial Pentagon response after new photos of
US soldiers torturing detainees at Abu Ghraib prison were leaked to Australian
media. Like Rumsfeld, many of us seem to be suffering a terrible sense of déjà
vu:
- again, evidence that torture is not aberrant but a standard tool in the
US “war on terror”
- again, the media fixed on the “problem of the photos,” not the
reality of open criminality they expose
- again, the administration scrambling to direct public outrage away from
questions of accountability with the false “choice” between protecting
American lives and upholding the law—moral standards be damned
One voice in surprising, if sad, agreement with our secretary of defense is
Kristian Williams, author of the forthcoming American Methods: Torture and
...
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Author Article
Torturers ‘R’ Us
President Bush denies reality
In These Times, November 28, 2005
The national debate on torture reached a new level in October when the Senate voted 90 to nine to restrict Defense Department interrogation techniques and prohibit the “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment” of anyone in U.S. custody. The vote came as a major rebuke to President George Bush, who threatened to veto the military spending bill if the proposals were included.
Bush responded to the vote by publicly defending the United States’ existing practices. During his Latin American tour in early November, he said, “We are gathering information about where the terrorists may be hiding. We are trying to disrupt their plots and plans. Anything we do … in this effort, any activity we conduct is within the law. We do not torture.”
Yet earlier that very week, Vice President Dick Cheney pleaded with Republican senators in a closed door meeting to exempt the CIA from the cruelty ban. The administration clearly does not like having its bluff called.
To understand the panic buzzing through the White House, you have to understand its philosophy. The administration has consistently read the law so as to minimize the protections offered to official enemies and maximize the power of the president. This approach has shaped almost every aspect of the “war on terror”—the sus...
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Author Article2
Confronting Horror:
Writing About Torture
by Kristian Williams
Published by New Politics in print and online
I DID NOT DREAM OF BEING TORTURED.
But I did dream of being caged, of being bound and blindfolded, of
being kept cold and naked in a small steel box. I dreamed of terrible
footsteps, always approaching, and the chilling sound of metal clanging
against metal. I dreamed of endless screams, and of shadows that
stretched toward me, and of hands holding instruments that I could never
quite see.
The dreams ended, always, before the pain could become real. But
that is a small matter. The fear was real enough.
I SPENT A LITTLE LESS THAN A YEAR researching and writing my book
American Methods -- or, a little more than a year if you count the time
spent on revisions. The book examines the U.S. government's use of
torture -- in war, in prison, and by proxy. My research led me to read
scores of human rights reports, hundreds of pages of government
documents, countless newspaper articles, and numerous books on the
history and practice of torture, international law, global politics, and
rape. I learned a whole new vocabulary -- "hooding," "monstering,"
"stress positions," "falaka," "strip cells," "rendition,"
"waterboarding," "the Palestinian hanging." And I became acquainted with
all variety of imaginative new uses for radiators, pliers,...
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Author Tour
7/14/06
Dear South End people,
Thank you for connecting us with your author, Kristian Williams. He
spoke at our shop last night and did wonderfully... He's really very
graceful in front of an audience, and has great recall of his
material.... The Q&A following was just great.
We're a small neighborhood store, just celebrating our first
anniversary. Events like this mean a great deal to us. And we love
having authors like Kristian. It's important to us to have the authors
we host reflect our values and concerns. We were especially happy to be
able to make a small donation to the organization Kristian works with,
Rose City Copwatch—$10% of the evening's sales.
I would have sent an actual thank-you note, but we're fresh
out, and I didn't want to wait to let you know how pleased we were to
host Kristian. If you find that you have other authors in your list who
will be available to speak in Portland, please do let us know.
Thanks always,
Nena Rawdah, co-owner
St. Johns Booksellers
8622 N. Lombard
Portland, OR 97203
503-283-0032
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;)
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