In most of the developed world, for most of the post-World War II era, the notion that torture might be OK was about as open to discussion as the notion that adulterers should be stoned or that Africans should be enslaved. Now, however, torture is back on the table, and even thinkers as mainstream as Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz refuse to categorically rule out its use.
This sea change in how we think about torture came about largely as a result of the revelation that Americans were, in fact, torturing inmates at military prisons, most notably in occupied Iraq. Many of us were shocked by this state of affairs and found the argument most frequently trotted out in support of torture, that extreme measures are necessary in a time of war, specious at best. There is, however, a grain of truth in this linkage of war with torture: Torture may not be necessary when a country is at war, but when a country is at war torture is likely to occur. We know that mistreatment of prisoners has been a part of the occupation of Iraq; can anyone doubt that it was a part of earlier, more popular occupations?
If such skeptics do exist, Terese Svoboda's meditation on her uncle's time as a prison guard in occupied Japan may shatter their rose-colored glasses, and it will do so in a way more subtle — and therefore more compelling — than straight history or angry polemic might have done. Instead she gives us what Robert Polito calls a "nonfiction montage" that is equal parts memoir, mystery, and indictment of those responsible for the management of military prisons during the occupation.