None of Us Were Like This Before: American Soldiers and Torture Paperback – July 4, 2012

None of Us Were Like This Before is a remarkable book. I expected it to be tough to take, and indeed it was in parts, but the book is engaging and sensitive. The author, Joshua Phillips, succeeds in being nuanced and fair but also deeply moving in examining the causes and consequences of prisoner abuse and torture by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. Achieving this delicate balance is no small feat given the divisiveness of the issue of torture.Torture and abuse raise a number of questions that will hopefully be addressed as the nation reflects on the lengthy and costly military engagements o f the past decade. To what extent did torture and abuse occur? How and why did they occur? Did they yield useful intelligence as apologists maintain? What were the tactical consequences of torture and abuse for U.S. forces in terms of the "battle for the hearts and minds" of Afghanis and Iraqis? What were the human consequences for the victims? What were the human consequences for troops involved in abuse and torture? What adjustments are being made to avoid counterproductive (or any) abuse and torture in the future?It will take a small canon of literature to address all these questions but None of Us Were Like This Before is an important read for anyone serious about reflecting on what happened. The book touches on a number of questions but addresses two with depth: how and why abuse and torture occurred and the human consequences for troops involved. Phillip's approach to these questions is commendable. In looking at the causes of torture, he avoids the simplicity of pinning blame on "a few bad apples" in the military or Bush Administration or positing another formulaic, "one size fits all" explanation of why torture and abuse occurred. From extensive interviews it becomes clear that there is no easy answer. Incidents were numerous and the causes varied, including factors such as lack of training; the stress of facing a deadly insurgency; desire for revenge following 9-11; the prevailing belief that torture is effective (even in the face of evidence suggesting otherwise); senior commanders encouraging it, turning a blind eye or just failing to assert control of the situation; the influence of TV and movies; lack of accountability and boredom. Phillips is also careful to point out that while many of our troops were exposed to several of these factors, the vast majority served with distinction and honor and did not engage in prisoner abuse or torture.The human consequences for our troops are conveyed movingly in the stories of Sergeant Adam Gray and medic Jonathan Millantz, their friends and families. The struggles of Gray and Millantz after their return from duty painfully illustrate the damage that can be done when we ask or permit our soldiers to do things which conflict with their own mores and those of society. Phillips' reporting excels in the telling of their stories. He clearly devoted a great deal of time and care to this and treats Gray, Millantz and their families with sensitivity and without judgment. His reporting compels us to grieve for them and in so doing, moves us beyond divisiveness and finger pointing to a more enlightened sense of collective responsibility.

I wasn't sure I wanted to read a book about detainee abuse and interrogators. Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo happened years ago and Iraq is winding down. Nearly a decade after 9/11, I thought it would have all been covered already in the press. I was wrong and this book provides a lot of insight by talking with soldiers who have been involved in detainee abuse and some of the victims of that abuse. Family members of both are also interviewed.This book doesn't shy away from the brutality of American torture and the author's accounts from victims of torture is searing. It's impossible to not to be angry at the injustices suffered. But this book is not a "hit piece" on the military or soldiers and the author has a surprising amount of empathy for the sufferings of both the victim and victimizer. It alternately made me very sad and very mad for all the persons affected by it.Understanding the situation that some of our soldiers found themselves in and what some of them did to detainees and what they went through after really forced me to give sympathy to persons I had previously thought of only as "bad apples" guilty of monstrous crimes. The truth is much more complicated.Other parts of the book give overviews on the subject matter, the history or detainee abuse, the decision-making of the higher ups and so on. Much of the book is written in the first person which helps give a lighter touch to a very heavy subject matter.I learned a lot from this book and highly recommend it. You'll think about it not only around the issue of torture but generally on any story about soldiers returning home with post-traumatic stress disorder.

This book is a compassionate look at torture in Afghanistan and Iraq, through the eyes of both US soldiers who became torturers by circumstance and their victims. Phillips followed several stories very closely, in particular those of two soldiers who killed themselves after returning home. What I appreciated most about his point of view was that he was very evenhanded, truthful, and compassionate to all involved, and was very clear about labelling things that were his responses and reactions, rather than editorializing the content in some sensationalistic way. The torture as experienced by torturers and victims is so horrible that it needs no editorializing anyways. But the result of reading the book was that the stories of peoples' experiences were very compelling, and that I felt I was hearing and seeing them firsthand through the eyes of an honest narrator. This makes the painful stories Phillips is bringing to light impossible to dismiss as the point of view of some biased reporter with an agenda.I will not impart many details about the stories Phillips followed because I cannot do them justice, but the horrible and powerful images and emotions are still lingering with me several months later. Some of the experiences of victims who died and soldiers who came home shattered moved me to tears and anger. This is a national tragedy that has not been honestly discussed because the topic is so immensely uncomfortable, and it is even more relevant now to read the book as people seek to justify torture as the reason bin Laden was captured.This book shows that torture is not and is never worth for so many reasons: abusing or even murdering victims who are in the majority of cases falsely accused; destroying the minds and lives of innocent soldiers who are pulled into doing a job they were never prepared for nor would have chosen; creating generations of distrust among the populations of countries we are actually trying to help; and all to obtain information that in, it seems, 99.9% of cases is inaccurate. Not to mention making our country, and others around the world who follow our example, accustomed to behaving in ever more inhumane ways. To those who tout bin Laden as proof that torture works, one can only say, read the book and ask yourself why, if it works so well, was he not caught in 2002? And why (a Phillips statistic) are 1 in 4 of the soldiers who died in the Iraq war dead because of suicide or reckless behavior upon returning home?

Wer versuchen will, einen Eindruck davon zu bekommen, was junge amerikanische Soldaten dazu brachte, hilflose Gefangene im Irak und anderswo zu misshandeln, dem ist mit diesem Buch nicht viel geholfen. Es beschränkt sich größtenteils auf Faktensammlung und Einzelfallbeschreibungen, die beide nichts Neues zur - ja schon etwas älteren - Diskussion beitragen. Auf der Suche nach Gefühlen kann man genau diese eben nicht sachlich-distanziert ausblenden. Besser "Ghosts of Abu Ghraib" anschauen (Google findet den Film)!