There is a part of all of us that could, given the right circumstances, participate in physical or psychological torture of other people. That is one of many disturbing revelations from this very well researched book by journalist John Conroy.

Conroy’s first book looked at war as a way of life in Northern Ireland. In researching that book he heard stories of torture, and decided to do something to illuminate that topic. The result, after many years of difficult work, is this book.

In his Introduction, Conroy notes that the book is not fair on at least three counts: it is not fair to those who have survived torture, it does not do justice to the most brutal regimes in the world today, and it makes no attempt to portray the work of human rights organizations that work to end torture or the clinics that help torture survivors recover.

While it might be possible, he says, to write a description of all the horrors of torture in such a way that many survivors would say the words adequately portrayed the pain they felt, "the end product of such an exercise could be a book too painful for most people to read. Those who managed to reach the final page might find their eyes glazed over and their heart hardened." I found myself needing to get away from the words in this book fairly often, and to realize that its author does not feel it fairly conveys the pain felt by those who are tortured is to raise horror to a new level.

In deciding not to use his book to simply list the evil deeds of backward countries, Conroy has done perhaps his greatest service by forcing us to look at ourselves. He realized, he says, that many people have the idea that torture is something done in some backward civilization by the barely human and certainly ignorant. "I was gradually becoming aware, however, that torture is something that most of us are capable of, and so I decided to use case studies that I thought American readers could identify with — people like us who deployed the brutal methods I’d heard associated with the Third World."

The case studies essentially chose themselves, once the framework had been decided upon. And so we have detail gained from official documents, interviews with parties on all sides, and media accounts on three instances of torture: interrogation practices in a Chicago police district (Conroy is a Chicago–based reporter), two raids conducted by the Israeli army in which soldiers were ordered to break arms and legs of Palestinians who had not committed any aggressive acts against them, and Northern Ireland’s "hooded men" who were tortured by British forces.

There is no doubt that any of the instances actually happened, and happened as Conroy relates them. But the stories he tells are enough to make the reader increasingly physically ill. For he not only describes in graphic detail the torture imposed in the three instances, but also makes sure we can see ourselves in those who carried out the torture and in the aftermath, in which there was minimal condemnation and light, if any, punishment for those involved.

"Torture has long been employed by well-meaning, even reasonable people armed with the sincere belief that they are preserving civilization as they know it," Conroy declares. And there, but for the grace of God, go we. We meet the Israeli army officer who ordered his men to break other men’s arms and legs but remained on the bus himself so as not to see or hear what was happening and allowed anyone else who wanted to avoid the duty to do so. He protested up the chain of command a ways, and believed he had done all he could be expected to do. The men who carried out his command were not psychopaths. They were family men who believed they were following orders and doing what was necessary to protect their homeland.

The British soldiers who committed unspeakable brutality against Catholics in Northern Ireland also believed in the most perverted way that they were helping to bring peace to that troubled country. And the Chicago police officers wanted to make their district safe for law–abiding people by ridding it of criminals. That they tortured someone who was innocent is unfortunate, but mistakes happen.

During the course of the book, Conroy also manages to give us a short but pointed history lesson on the uses of torture throughout the ages and works in the results of some experimental psychology tests that give credence to the notion that under some circumstances, most of us could participate in torture.

Perhaps the most horrifying notion in 256 pages of horrifying text is that over the years it has been shown that torture doesn’t work. Tortured people don’t give up the secrets they supposedly have that will make life better for a larger group of people. They suffer until they die or until the torture ends, and nothing has changed in the overall scheme of things.

It is not possible to read this book and piously condemn the evil people portrayed in it. Conroy makes sure that we know we have, as Pogo said, met the enemy and he is us. His last chapter is devoted to the bystanders — those in experiments and in real life who know something is going on but don’t do anything about it. While some authors say that helping those in danger is infectious, Conroy finds that it is an infection that is not easily spread. Those who rescued Jews during the Holocaust often were approached directly by someone in dire need. They were not on the sidelines and felt called to plunge in. The experiments seem to show, he says, that if it is easy to escape without helping, most people will escape.

"In places where torture takes place, it is often well known to thousands and sometimes millions of people. That means that responsibility is diffused. Many bystanders simply don’t know what to do, how to help, even if they are inclined to — certainly a situation faced by many good Germans during the years of the Holocaust — and they remain immobilized…"