Alfred McCoy titled his book A Question of Torture. Heaven knows why. He doesn’t ask any questions. Instead, he just piles up assertions intended to demonstrate that the C.I.A. has conducted a sustained campaign of torture since the 1950’s. This was top secret, of course, until the obscenities at Abu Ghraib exposed the agency Read More
NewYork civil-rights lawyer Michael Ratner was in the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday,flankedbythe mother of one of the Guantánamo detainees he has represented for the past two years, unsure what to expect. After an hour, he was pleasantly surprised. First, Sandra Day O’Connor, and then Justices Souter, Breyer, Kennedy and even Scalia, indicated through their questions Read More
French feminists took to the streets last week protesting the professional striptease lessons being offered to female shoppers by the new lingerie department at the Galeries Lafayette, Paris’ version of Macy’s. That they cared at all would come as a surprise to anyone who’s spent any time in the French capital in recent years. This Read More
Why are we giving Korans to the Al Qaeda prisoners in Guantanamo?
The officers responsible for their care have let it be known that each murderous outlaw may have–in addition to a mat, a pair of flip-flops and two towels–access to a Koran. This, by way of proving our humanity to the world.
It Read More
Some members of the British Parliament don’t like the way we Yanks are treating the terrorists we’ve captured. Likewise elements of the British press. The Daily Mail ran a photograph of some handcuffed detainees kneeling in a holding cell in Guantanamo. A headline read: “Tortured.”
The newspaper complains that captured Al Qaeda members are being Read More
