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The Long Shadow of Torture (November 4, 2010)

Iranian-American political scientist Darius Rejali is one of the world’s leading experts on torture, and in particular on how democracies change torture and are changed by it. In the wake of Wikileaks revelations about torture in U.S.-occupied Iraq, we explore how his knowledge might deepen our public discourse about such practices and inform our collective reckoning with consequences yet to unfold. [From The Long Shadow of Torture (November 4, 2010)] torture

The best investigative reporting of 2011 worthy of a Pulitizer | Talking Points Memo

The best investigative reporting of 2011 worthy of a Pulitizer | Talking Points Memo. Let’s be honest: Most investigative reporting doesn’t get widely read because it’s dense, inaccessible and not very compelling. It lands with a thud and isn’t heard from again. That’s why I was rooting for a couple of guys this time around for Pulitzers whose work was doggedly reported, widely read, and forced the powers that be to react.

Getting the Motives Right – Foreign Policy Association

My first piece for the Foreign Policy Association blog. The recent attack against Ismaili Muslims in Karachi, Pakistan, will be read by most as part of a simple narrative of an ongoing Sunni-Shi’ah conflict. Unfortunately, as consistent fear-mongering has demonstrated with Sharia, bandying about non-English words conveys a facade of knowledge without any guarantee of any actual understanding. As is the case with most political violence, here is more to this attack than a simple retelling of a religious clash. There is a deeper history that is masked by using inappropriate vocabulary, and misusing it is allowing the most extreme…