Someone in the Slate message boards who goes by the name “TheVeiled” has posted a brilliant and marvelously Swiftian defense of torture there. It’s a must-read.
Links of Interest
If you enjoyed my review of Adam Hochschild’s Bury the Chains from , you might also enjoy an interview with Hochschild that Mother Jones published around the same time.
The New York Times Sunday Book Review has an excellent discussion of the U.S. torture policy and torture practices in the form of a review of two recently-released books compiling many of the reports and documents concerning the abuse. The review was written by “who are you and what have you done with” Andrew Sullivan, who was and is foolishly hawkish on the war in Iraq, but who draws the line at torture.
Meanwhile, the Senate voted 96 to 2 to prohibit intelligence agencies like the CIA from using torture. But when the bill got trapped behind closed doors with Congressional negotiators and representatives from the White House, that part of the bill got sliced out. The Dubya Squad is working hard to keep a torture loophole for the CIA, and Congress seems to be okay with that.
Against War? Stop Buying It! says Andy McKenna in today’s AntiWar.com. He recounts the trials and tribulations of the Austin Conscientious Objectors to Military Taxation and makes a hopeful plea for a Peace Tax law (though he admits that such a law “would increase tax revenues and decrease the IRS’s collection burden… [and] would not reduce the military budget or ‘open the floodgates’ to other taxpayers”).
