American Methods: Torture and the Logic of Domination

About this book

When the Abu Ghraib prison scandal broke in April 2004 many American commentators expressed shock. But as The Progressives Anne-Marie Cusac observed Abu Ghraib shocks us because our soldiers abroad seem to have acted out behaviors that we condone yet dont face up to at home. On the heels of Our Enemies in Blue Kristian Williams controversial chronicle of policing the writer/activist gives us American Methods once again upsetting the notion that the use of excessive force by the state is aberrant rather than altogether American. American Methods reveals torture not as a recent or rogue phenomenon but a veteran tool of the American state. As Williams suggests torture is not as claimed a means of interrogation used only by others elsewhere. Instead it is a tried-and-true weapon of social control and terror right here in the US. Unlike other recent books American Methods locates war on terror scandals in the systems of inequities and dominance that nurture them. Williams pays close attention to the distinct character of American torture and its gender and racial contoursparticularly its emphasis on sexual violence emasculation and spectacle. His discussion ranges over much of the globe and a quarter-century: from US support of torture-regimes in Central America in the 1980s to todays more favored approachoutsourcing torture to friendly governments. Returning to our shores Williams observes the banality of violence in American prisons precincts and society. Ultimately he offers devastating conclusions about the centrality of rape racism and conquest to both the state and our national culture. Kristian Williams writings have appeared in CounterPunch Columbia Journalism Review and We Are Everywhere: The Irresistible Rise of Global Anti-Capitalism. A member of Rose City Copwatch in Portland Oregon Williams also authored Our Enemies in Blue (2004).