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Torturers For Hire

But didn’t CIA officers have to approve the request? Former FBI supervisory special agent Ali Soufan, writing in an op-ed in the New York Times today, makes this parenthetical point regarding CIA torture: (It’s worth noting that when reading between the lines of the newly released memos, it seems clear that it was contractors, not C.I.A. officers, who requested the use of these techniques.) I’m not sure if that puts a different gloss on Obama’s decision not to prosecute CIA officers, but it’s a point worth noting. [From Torturers For Hire]

Prisoner Treatment, Morality, and #Torture

Juan Cole is brilliant in his analysis of how the US lost the moral high ground on prisoner treatment, in part because of our torture polices. But I fear that the argument that the public humiliation of prisoners is against international law won’t take the US very far after 8 years of Bush-Cheney. After the evidence surfaced that the US military took all those humiliating pictures of prisoners at Abu Ghraib to blackmail them by threatening to make them public, the US assertion of support for this principle of the Geneva Conventions will be met with, well, let us say…

Hijabi Revolution: NYPD and the Muslim American Community in NYC

Linda does a really nice job laying out what’s been happening with respect to the NYPD and the American Muslim community in NYC. I hope to add some of my thoughts later. Hijabi Revolution: NYPD and the Muslim American Community in NYC. I am sure you are all following the controversy around the NYPD’s use of a hateful, anti-Muslim film, The Third Jihad, to train close to 1500 officers. As a member of the Muslim American community, and a member of the broad based coalition calling for the resignation of Raymond Kelly and Paul Browne, I would like to give…