A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror

The book written by Alfred McCoy (2006) entitled A Question of Torture CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror speaks of CIAs process of developing different forms of torture through practice of sensory deprivation and self-inflicted pain.These ar do by means of isolation, hooding, manipulation of time, or by means of hours of standing, which was practiced by the U.S. CIA in Vietnam, in Iran, in Central America, and in Southeast Asia. This, according to McCoy (2006), is not so much a natural torture but a psychological one that, if not improved or reassessed scrupulously, could affect and monetary value Americas good reputation and respectable global standing.Main BodyMcCoy (2006) opened his book with the scene by CBS Television of the Abu Ghraib prison that showed Iraqis naked, hooded, and contorted in humiliating positions while U.S. soldiers stood over them, smiling (p.5). According to McCoy (2006),These photos are not, in fact, snapshots of simple sadism or a breakdown in military discipline but CIA torture rules that feature metastasized like an undetected cancer inside the U.S. intelligence community over the past half century. (p.5)With its kickoff dating back to more than 50 years ago during the Cold War, this type of scenes and incidents promoted political scandals and controversies that reached nonetheless to the Bushs administration of the interrogation policy.From the 1950 to 1962, CIAs experiments on the best type of torture get on psychological torture, or what was also called as the no-touch type of torture. The two new method actings that were formulated was the recitation of sensory disorientation and self-inflicted pain that made the victim feel responsible for their suffering and thus abandon more readily to their torturers (McCoy, 2006, p.8).As also indicated, The fusion of these two techniques, sensory disorientation and self-inflicted pain, creates a synergy of carnal and psychological trauma whose sum is a h ammer-blow to the fundamentals of personal identity (p.8). After the year 1963, the no-touch method of torture included methods of unimaginable cruelties in the form of physical as well as informal harassments, such as the scenes at Abu Ghraib.The use of mind control by the CIA propagates evil torture, which leads to political scandal and ruin. CIAs basic purpose, of course, is for plea against foreign threats. However, for the past 50 years, this type of torture of the Americas CIA reflected political and administrative wreck that tended to worsen as each decade passed.From the Phoenix program in Vietnam in the early 60s, immorality appears to be the basic framework of the American agenda of foreign defense and protection. There were already incidents like these back in the 1960s and to witness it alive and kicking until the twenty-first century is a huge sign that something wrong has been going on with Americas method of extricating criminals.