Everardo and the CIA’s Long-Term Torture Practices

Abstract

Jennifer Harbury’s essay begins and ends with the images of torture by US forces in Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq, witnessing the similarity of torture techniques revealed in those images to techniques used by the United States in its support of counter-insurgency efforts across Latin America in the latter half of the twentieth century. Combining her own testimonial to the torture and disappearance of her husband in Guatemala with testimonials from other survivors of torture in Latin America, Harbury makes the case that the United States has been a participant in torture and disappearance for decades, and that the use of torture in Abu Ghraib was no aberration by a “few bad apples,” but rather central to US policy and strategy in its "war on terror."