''Torturing Democracy'' is a 2008
documentary film
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...
produced by Washington Media Associates. The film details the use of torture by the
Bush administration in the "
War on Terror
The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is an ongoing international Counterterrorism, counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks. The main targets of the campa ...
."
Overview
Produced by journalist
Sherry Jones
Sherry Jones (born in Nashville, Tennessee) is an American politician and a Democratic member of the Tennessee House of Representatives representing District 59 since January 1995.
Electoral history
*1994 Jones was initially elected in the 199 ...
and narrated by Peter Coyote, ''Torturing Democracy'' examines the origin of the Bush administration's use of torture as part of US interrogation and detention policy.
Weaving together interviews with primary source documents, the film describes the initial response to 9/11 and the drawing up of legal memoranda, collectively called the "
torture memos
A set of legal memoranda known as the "Torture Memos" (officially the Memorandum Regarding Military Interrogation of Alien Unlawful Combatants Held Outside The United States) were drafted by John Yoo as Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the U ...
," that approved and expanded detention and interrogation policies, including the use of what the Bush administration and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) referred to as "
enhanced interrogation techniques
"Enhanced interrogation techniques" or "enhanced interrogation" is a euphemism for the program of systematic torture of detainees by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and various components of the U.S. A ...
".
Many of the enhanced techniques, including waterboarding, were derived from a military training program called
Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape
Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) is a training program, best known by its military acronym, that prepares U.S. military personnel, U.S. Department of Defense civilians, and private military contractors to survive and "return ...
(SERE) and were modeled after tactics used to torture American soldiers during the Korean War. SERE training was designed to prepare American soldiers to resist torture if captured.
The documentary includes interviews with
US State Department
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nati ...
and military personnel, such as former Deputy Secretary of State
Richard Armitage and former detainees held at Guantanamo Bay detention camp, including
Shafiq Rasul
Shafiq Rasul (born 15 April 1977) is a British citizen who was a detainee held at Guantanamo Bay by the United States, which treated him an unlawful combatant. His detainee ID number was 86.
His family discovered his detention when the British ...
.
Primary source documents, including the torture memos, interrogation logs, and reports, were released through Freedom of Information Act requests and lawsuits by the ACLU, Associated Press, and the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Release
PBS did not initially air the film, although it was aired on PBS-affiliated networks. It was suggested that the airdate they proposed, January 21, 2009, one day after President Bush left office, was a factor in their decision but PBS claimed that the date was coincidental.
PBS's airdate offer was declined by the producer, Sherry Jones, as too late, not because of the election but because she felt that it needed to be released when “the news was still breaking.”
Awards
* 2009
Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award
The Robert F. Kennedy Awards for Excellence in Journalism is a journalism award named after Robert F. Kennedy and awarded by the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. The annual awards are issued in several categories and were est ...
- Domestic TV
See also
*''
Taxi to the Dark Side
''Taxi to the Dark Side'' is a 2007 American documentary film directed by Alex Gibney, and produced by Gibney, Eva Orner, and Susannah Shipman. It won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. It focuses on the December 2002 killing of ...
''
*
Torture Memos
A set of legal memoranda known as the "Torture Memos" (officially the Memorandum Regarding Military Interrogation of Alien Unlawful Combatants Held Outside The United States) were drafted by John Yoo as Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the U ...
*
The Dark Side (book)
''The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals'' is a 2008 non-fiction book written by American journalist Jane Mayer about Islamic radicalism, the War on Terrorism, and the "closed-doors domestic ...
*
Rasul v. Bush
''Rasul v. Bush'', 542 U.S. 466 (2004), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court in which the Court held that foreign nationals held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp could petition federal courts for writs of ''habeas corpus ...
External links
Transcript - National Security Archive at GWUACLU v. DOD
References
American documentary films
Documentary films about American politics
Documentary films about war
2008 films
Extrajudicial prisoners of the United States
Torture in the United States
War on terror
Presidency of George W. Bush
Documentary films about human rights
2000s English-language films
2000s American films
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