(Un)ethical consequences: How psychology’s cold war defense of military personnel led to enhanced interrogation techniques in the war on terror.

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Douglas Woody ◽  
David Gretz ◽  
Kathryn LaFary ◽  
Charlie Rosenblum
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Military Personnel ◽  
War On Terror ◽  
Interrogation Techniques ◽  
Enhanced Interrogation

scholarly journals Historicizing waterboarding as a severe torture norm

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 488-512 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rory Cox
Keyword(s):  
War On Terror ◽  
Bush Administration ◽  
First Century ◽  
Explicit Description ◽  
The Us ◽  
Interrogation Techniques ◽  
History Of ◽  
Interrogation Technique ◽  
Enhanced Interrogation ◽  
Large Sections

The debate on waterboarding and the wider debate on torture remains fiercely contested. President Trump and large sections of the US public continue to support the use of waterboarding and other so-called ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ as part of the ‘War on Terror’, thus putting the anti-torture norm under pressure. This article demonstrates that the re-imagining of waterboarding as ‘torture-lite’ is contradicted by the long history of waterboarding itself. Examining pre-modern uses and descriptions of torture and waterboarding, this article highlights that the post-2001 identification of waterboarding as a relatively benign interrogation technique radically inverts a norm that has predominated for over 600 years. This historical norm unequivocally identifies waterboarding not only as torture but as severe torture. The article highlights the value of historically contextualizing attitudes to torture, reviews how and why waterboarding was downgraded by the Bush Administration, reveals the earliest explicit description of waterboarding from 1384, and argues that the twenty-first-century re-imagining of waterboarding as torture-lite is indicative of the fragility of the anti-torture norm.

PASHTUN IMAGES IN CONTEMPORARY PAKISTANI FICTION IN ENGLISH

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-22
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
South Asia ◽  
War On Terror ◽  
Cultural Discourses ◽  
The Times ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Global Powers

Living in an area that has long been a battlefield where various world powers have often been at loggerheads, Pashtuns have frequently drawn the attention of several works of fiction. Yet literary scholars have largely ignored the importance of these works of fiction looking into the lives of Pashtuns. This paper proposes that from the times of the Cold War to those of the War on Terror, Pashtun identities have been clouded by the hegemonic discourses of the contesting global powers, leading to gaps and silences in their depiction in literature.This paper argues that the Pashtun images in contemporary Pakistani fiction in English exhibit strong influences of the dominating narratives; simultaneously, however, they seem to offer various patterns of subversion of the prevailing power narratives. Despite the fact that Pashtuns are generally regarded as the most subversive people of South Asia and that their lands have been regarded significant strategically as well as geographically, yet they are portrayed as the Others of the mainstream cultural discourses. This paper aims to highlight the contours of the socio-cultural and political valuation of Pashtuns in contemporary Pakistani fiction in English.

The Power of Literature to Decipher the Archetype of Lone-Wolf

2021 ◽  
pp. 182-194
Author(s):  
Maximiliano Emanuel Korstanje
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
War On Terror ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Entertainment Industry ◽  
Lone Wolf ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cold War

The Soviet Union collapse marked the end of the Cold War and the rise of the US as the only superpower, at least until 9/11, a foundational event where four civil aeroplanes were directed against the commercial and military hallmarks of the most powerful nation. Terrorism and the so-called War on Terror characterized the turn of a bloody century whose legacy remains to date. The chapter explores the dilemmas of lone-wolf terrorism from the lens of literature as well as cultural theory. The authors hold the thesis that terrorism activates some long-dormant narrative forged in the colonial period respecting to the “non-Western other.” Having said this, the chapter dissects the plot of some novels and TV films, which takes part in the broader cultural entertainment industry. Based on the logic of living with the enemy, novels alert on the importance to scrutinize the non-Western guests (migrants) as future terrorists.

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