Nasiyah Richardson

English
3/21/11

Klein-The Shock Doctrine

Single Sided View of America and The Horror

Naomi Klein The Shock Doctrine is a book that I would say is very informing.
She writes in a way to really get across what she chooses for her readers to know.
She does a good job in my opinion of uncovering ideas and secrets about the
United States that many do not know. She gathers many different works of others
in order to conclude her ideas on the various topics she discusses. She tells of the
big idea of Capitalism. She discusses this through examples like hurricane
Katrina, 9/11 Terrorist attack, the effects of shock treatment and much more. As a
whole I feel that the book is very much a book that broadened my horizons to
many things I had never even heard about. I found myself many times wondering
if the things she was stating were even allowed to be said.
The first chapter of the Shock Doctrine, goes by the title of The Torture
Lab. This chapter circulates around the events of a womans life by the name of
Gail Kastner. Kastner allows Klein into a part of her history. She tells Klein of the
many things that happened to her as she was part of a study at McGill University
in the 1950s. She tells Klein of her shock treatment and the results of it.

Klein initial purpose of being there as she stated to Kastner was because
Klein felt The research that was being done on you in the 1950s is now being
applied to prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib (Klein 30). What was
being done in these places were horrific and being unheard of and unbelievable. If
reported even by association to those in terrorism, in places like Guantanamo,
Abu Ghraib, and even the United States, the person was taken captive.
People were taken captive and put into prisons looked over by American
Soldiers. On one reported case a U.S. citizen and former gang member by the
name of Jose Padilla was arrested in 2002 at the OHare airport where he was
accused of trying to build a dirty bomb. From this he was looked at as Klein
stated as an enemy combatant, (Klein 53) and they took away all rights. He was
then tooken to a U.S. navy prison on Charlston, South Carolina and was injected
with LSD or PCP. They forced him to stay in a too small cell with no windows,
clock, or calendar. In order the leave his cell he had to be shackled, his eyes were
covered with blackout goggles and sound was blocked with heavy headphones.
(Klein 53)
Klein was showing that the US was beginning to take captives and do almost
what you would call brainwashing. She tells the story of a man on the streets of
Milan who was kidnapped by a group of CIA agents. They rushed him to Egypt
where he was put in a small cell with no light. Roaches and rats would crawl on
his body for fourteen months. He tells of how he was put through torture shock
where he was strapped to an iron rack and they began to uses electric stun guns.
He also would be hit with electricity while lying on a wet mattress. He also

admitted to having electric shock used on his testicles. Klein explains that in the
torture labs everything was shocked, your face, back, limbs and even genitals.
(Klein 55)
In order for Klein to effectively talk about the things she did and discuss
them as she did she use many sources of articles. One that helped her comply with
the topic of torture was Mark Landler and Souad Mekhennets, German Detainee
Questions His Countrys Role. This article told of a man by the name of Murat
Kurnaz, a German Citizen, who was held captive for suspicion of being a terrorist
with ties to Al Qaeda. While in prison He suffered many of the same severe
events that are stated above.
Though his story may seem the same, this case takes a twists when he states in
court, The first time, the Americans kept me in Guantnamo; the second time,
the Germans did (Landler 1) He even went on to tell how the German soldiers
slammed his head on the ground and kicked him, to the laughter of American
soldiers watching. All in all the German soldiers played much important role in
the holding of him. He admits that it is the American soldiers who are ones to
blame for capturing him, but when it was time for him to be released it was his
own native land that would not let him go free.
This too also takes a twist for me in Kleins work. Klein does a great job of
explaining and going in-depth in the series of event that takes place in these
torture labs and she also does a great job in putting the U.S. as the main
suspects in hosting these labs and this I agree on. My disagreement comes in with
the fact that she seems to almost block out any other countries in the doing of this

deed also. From the article she sourced, she pulled the complete idea of torture,
but I feel as if she went blind as to the fact of it was these countries who were
helping America imprison the people of that land.. When it comes to Klein and
the handling of her source in this particular case, I dont not agree with the way
she handles it. She pulls from the source only what she feels she wants to tell and
doesnt really give us the full story.
Reading over more sources of this chapter I came across A Nation
Challenged: The Prisoners; Rumsfeld Backs Plan to Hold Captives Even if
Acquitted by Katherine Q. Seelye. This article tells more about these torture
prisons. It is about America and how the Bush administration decided that the
prisons were getting over crowded, and they felt that they needed more and bigger
prisons in Cuba. There plan was to hold those with association with al-Qaeda and
terrorism in these prisons maybe until the War on Terrorism was over.
This indeed was Americas plan, and it was the Bush administration who wrote
it, but it was also more than just Americans that were needed to complete this
goal. The article stated that, Over 400 Filipino engineers and construction
workers, were hires and worked to build a permanent prison in Cuba for the
detainees. (Seelye 1) This is obvious proof to show that once again Klein does
not tell of other nations and people who also have their part in the horrifying
things that is going on, but she continues to only blame the U.S. through this
whole chapter. I didnt once read this chapter and hear about the fact the it was the
Filipinos who were helping build and construct these camps, or that fact that even

when the U.S. would sometimes want to free a prisoner it would be the prisoners
own native land who would force them back to captivity.
This single sided view of Klein is also showed through another one of her
sources for the torture lab, Testifying to Torture by James Lemoyne. This was a
story of a woman by the name of Ines Murillo. She tells of similar stories like the
others I have talked about and the gruesome events that took place. She even told
about how she was molested for 80 days straight. She was beat naked and stripped
of everything mentally.
The article goes on to state how Her worst torturer was known as ''Rony,'' a
man who is actually a Honduran Army lieutenant, Marco Tulio Regalado.
(Lemoyne 1) It stood out to me that her worst torturer was not an American but
was once again someone of another nation. This man was indeed from the
Honduras. Klein uses these sources but once again only pulled out what she felt
was important to prove her point, and once again she focused solely on the
torturing and not the big piece that stood out to me, which was the help of the
other nation.
How is that Klein portrays such a tell all book, but I find the chapter the
Torture Lab to be very single sided. Only hearing about the tortures Americans
have put upon people, but falls short of telling the total truth about others who
also plays their part in admitting that Americans couldnt be doing all these things
alone.
All though to me Klein has proved what I am stating as correct this makes no
excuse for the fact that America in itself has been a monster even with the help of

other countries. America takes much blame because it is America who has started
these torture processes. Klein states that These prisoners are being tortured by
U.S. Citizens in U.S. run prisons on U.S. planes (Klein 52). That in all is much
true, so with the help of other nation America still takes much blame, and this is
one thing that I feel that Klein definitely does cover in this chapter and this is
where I begin to agree.
She tells of the deeds that Americans are doing to people and the Bush
administrations and how they began the plan. Klein describes them in such
horrifying ways you began to ask yourself how can man kind even do such
things? Take for example her source I talked about above, A Nation Challenged,
about the building of the bigger torture prisons, and how the prisoners are planned
to not be released until the war on terrorism ends. My first initial view of this was
America is only doing what they think is right. They obviously feel that these men
and women are a threat to our country. As I read on in this article I found out that
these prisoners are in jail for nothing more than assumption. The article states So
far, none of the prisoners -- who come from 33 different countries -- have been
charged or found guilty of any crime, (Seelye 2) but they will not be released.
This brought me to ask what gives America the right to hold people through
days of torture and unimaginable events on the account of nothing. The War on
Terrorism may go on for another 50 to 100 years, and it is these people who will
have to just sit and wait and experience more of this torture. So this brings me to
why I agree in ways of why Klein portrays America as she does in her text.

America even goes on to torture and imprison those on it own native land which
is the story of Padilla which I tell about in above texts. In Why Did They Torture
Jose Padilla? by John Grant, Klein uses this source as a useful way to explain
this story. How America can torture one of there own, one of its own natives as if
he was a stranger to this country by putting him through torture instead of an
American jail, is a question that puzzles us still. I feel that Klein explains and
embodies this story in her text in an effective enough way to let us know what
America is actually doing.
Does she tell both sides the best way, no as I have stated through the text
many times, but I do feel that Klein want to explain the post9/11 fear we have,
that has resulted in a number of horrendously wrong-headed actions that is on
this country.
Klein has showed me and her other readers a look on things she had
uncovered about the doings of America in these torture labs. Klein proves to me
that she really wanted to get across the deeds of America in the injustices and the
imprisonment of these people, and she does a good job of this. What Klein does
not do a good job of is showing the involvement of other countries and the help
America had. Showing us that this is not only a problem of the U.S., but it is
indeed a international problem, and many places and countries are tangled up into
this web of destruction to man-kind.