There is a popular belief that Western history constitutes a progressive move from more to less torture. Iron maidens and racks are now museum exhibits, crucifixions are sectarian iconography and scientific experimentation on twins is History Channel infotainment. This narrative of progress deftly blends ideas about “time,” “place” and “culture.” In the popular imagination, “civilized societies” (a.k.a. “us”) do not rely on torture, whereas those societies where torture is still common remain “uncivilized,” torture being both a proof and a problem of their enduring “backwardness.”

George W. Bush epitomizes and mines the American popular imagination with his mantra of “spreading freedom,” which carries a strong implication of stopping torture. Saddam Hussein’s horrific legacy of mass torture was one of the arguments deployed to justify preemptive war against Iraq, and torture has become retroactively more important since weapons of mass destruction have failed to materialize. On April 30, 2004, Bush said, “A year ago I [gave a] speech…saying we had achieved an important objective, accomplished a mission, which was the removal of Saddam Hussein. As a result, there are no longer torture chambers or mass graves or rape rooms in Iraq.”

Even as Bush spoke those words, he and millions of newspaper readers and television viewers across the world were aware that torture chambers, rape and sexual abuse of detainees in Iraq are not a thing of the past. The public exposure of torture of Iraqi detainees by US soldiers, working in interrogation wings run by military intelligence and American “security contractors,” at Abu Ghraib prison outside of Baghdad—as well as allegations of torture of other Iraqis by British soldiers—are headline news. The shocking revelations and photographs provide stark proof that torture is not a relic of “our past.” Nor does torture provide a meaningful geographical or cultural demarcation between “civilized” and “uncivilized” societies.

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