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Torture, Medical Complicity, and the War on Terror
Random House
July 2006
240 pages ISBN: 140006578X Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
"If law be the bedrock of civil society, it can no more
undergird torture than it could support slavery or genocide."
-from the Introduction The graphic photographs of U.S. military personnel grinning
over abused Arab and Muslim prisoners shocked the world
community. That the United States was systematically
torturing inmates at prisons run by its military and
civilian leaders divided the nation and brought deep shame
to many. When Steven H. Miles, an expert in medical ethics
and an advocate for human rights, learned of the neglect,
mistreatment, and torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib,
Guantánamo Bay, and elsewhere, one of his first thoughts
was: "Where were the prison doctors while the abuses were
taking place?" In OATH BETRAYED, Miles explains the answer to this
question. Not only were doctors, nurses, and medics silent
while prisoners were abused; physicians and psychologists
provided information that helped determine how much and what
kind of mistreatment could be delivered to detainees during
interrogation. Additionally, these harsh examinations were
monitored by health professionals operating under the
purview of the U.S. military. Miles has based this book on meticulous research and a
wealth of resources, including unprecedented eyewitness
accounts from actual victims of prison abuse, and more than
thirty-five thousand pages of documentation acquired through
provisions of the Freedom of Information Act: army criminal
investigations, FBI notes on debriefings of prisoners,
autopsy reports, and prisoners' medical records. These
documents tell a story markedly different from the official
version of the truth, revealing involvement at every level
of government, from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to
the Pentagon's senior health officials to prison health-care
personnel. OATH BETRAYED is not a denunciation of American military
policy or of war in general, but of a profound betrayal of
traditions that have shaped the medical corps of the United
States armed forces and of America's abdication of its
leadership role in international human rights. This book is
a vital document that will both open minds and reinvigorate
Americans' understanding of why human rights matter, so that
we can reaffirm and fortify the rules for international
civil society.
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