Saturday, July 19, 2008

Why I Wrote Broken Under Interrogation

I am Jeffrey M. Hopkins, soldier, and author. Broken Under Interrogation is my first novel. I independently published it with Booksurge, and believe it to be an important contemporary work of fiction.

I began writing Broken Under Interrogation in October 2007, the moment I stepped of the C5 Galaxy that brought me home to the United States from Iraq the second time. It was a work in progress in my mind that had taken seed during the long nights that I spent awake with my Iraqi comrades discussing the numerous problems that faced their country. They were remarkably Stoic about what had happened to them for the last 4 years, since the United States’ “liberation” of their country. They had watched their country fall pray to groups of gangsters, militias, and terror groups – and they had joined the Iraqi Army in order to fight for a sense of law and order, as well as get a paycheck – which was hard to come by. They had all lost someone to the escalating violence, and still they came back and put on their uniform. They all had families to worry about. They could have taken the easy way out, and joined the militias themselves, but they saw something more meaningful in a longer struggle. I lived with these men, and they became my brothers. During the course of the 18 months I was in Iraq several of them died. I do not allow myself to think about the horror they faced in their final moments. I think about how they laughed and joked, and welcomed me with open arms. I take solace in the fact that we fought to ring any sweetness out of the bitter rind of despair that their country had become.

When I was in Iraq I was appalled at the talking heads on the news debating the right to torture. In Iraq, I watched a blond haired cutie on Fox News arguing that torture was okay, and asked the question, “Was she going to torture someone?” Then I thought to the torture chambers that were discovered in Iraq, with their blood stained walls and stench – and the bodies that piled up in Baghdad morgues that had been worked over with battery acid and power drills and I said to myself, no way. This is wrong.

The entire debate about torture neglects to mention the cold hard disgusting fact that torture requires torturers, people willing to do nasty, brutal things to other people. Iraq has plenty of torturers. I aim to make sure the United States of America has none. People want results, but they ignore the methods to get those results.

The story is a series of reminisces by John Powers scattered throughout his brutal interrogation at the hands of a corporate police, having been caught in his violent but effective “Special War on Drugs.” It is a horrifying cautionary tale about what may be, but offers hope for the future – if you are brave enough to seek it out.

I wrote this book, because I fear that my country has become a place that values knee jerk reactions over long debated courses of action. I wrote this to say that torture has no place in the prosecution of this “war on terrorism”. I wrote this to say that this conflict is unlike any we have ever seen. This is not a conflict of force on force, it is a conflict in which we must find needles in a haystack. But how hard is it to find needles if much the straw they hide amongst is willing to tell you where they are? We don’t need to torture.

I would please ask, if you care about the War in Iraq, if you are for or against it is no matter. If you care about civil liberties, and at the same time keeping people safe – please read this book. I believe offers a way out of this mess we’ve dug ourselves into.

Broken Under Interrogation is available here:

http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Under-Interrogation-Jeffrey-Hopkins/dp/1419698303