Related Posts

More on our #torture policies

If you haven’t already seen it, read this article in Harper’s entitled “We Still Torture.” Then go listen to “Blackout Beach” by the Kominas. Now we have entered what we may wish to call the post-torture era, except that it is not. Indeed, we cannot even revert to the easy hypocrisy of the Cold War. We have returned to our traditional practice of torturing and pretending not to, but the old routine is no longer convincing. We know too much. We know that we are still imprisoning men who very likely are completely innocent. We know that we still beat…

More on the open letter

In May I had posted an open letter to the two well-known presidential candidates, and actually sent it to both campaigns. I recently received a follow-up from the Kerry camp that someone has read the letter and will be forwarding it up to campaign management. It doesn’t read like a canned letter, nor does it end with a request for money. Will keep you posted on further follow-ups.

Dehumanized

Non-Muslims are uncaring people who are happy when they see other people being abused and tortured. At least that’s the impression I got from reading CNN.com today. Two stories talking about the images of torture at Abu Ghuraib prison had the following paragraphs: The images sparked anger among Muslims around the world… (link) The images have sparked anger among Muslims across the world… (link) I never would have thought that CNN reporters would dehumanize non-Muslims, but I guess there’s a first for everything. Just for the record, the second article actually does talk about Muslims across the world. The first…