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Research Seminar - Dr Michelle Farrell, University of Liverpool

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Location: S2.12 Law School, Social Sciences Building

'We tortured some folks': The Constitutionalisation of US torture

Abstract: Obama used these four little words in August 2014, at a White House press conference, in pre-emption of the publication of the damning Torture Senate Report. The sentence is undoubtedly jarring. He admits to the commission of an international crime. He describes the victims, quite colloquially, in friendly terms, as 'folks'. He says 'we' did it.

In this presentation, I will examine this admission with a view to deepening our understanding not only of the US attitude to its post 11 September policy of torture and its legacy for Obama and beyond but also of US ideology on torture; crucially, Obama's words also enrich our understanding of the act or practice of torture more broadly. These little words reveal, I argue, themes of liberal democratic torture, of sacrifice and of the political theology of torture, The 'we' is significant, gesturing as it does to violence as 'a practice of democratic participation'. The beautiful ambiguity of the word 'folks' with its suggestion of the commonplace, the neighbour, has nationalist undertones and facilitates an interpretation of torture, from the US perspective, as sacrificial, redemptive, perhaps even successful. Whilst there is always a risk of over-analysis, these four words, far from bringing closure to the Bush administration practices, seem to me to suggest that torture is not going anywhere in American political life.

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