Thursday, February 28, 2008

Those who do not learn from history...

...are doomed to make others repeat it.

Paul Kramer in last week's New Yorker (sorry, I'm running behind on my reading) about a raging controversy over the use of torture by occupying US forces trying to deal with subversives - over one hundred years ago. Go read.

2 comments:

km said...

Sometimes everything around me seems like a conspiracy to make the Python guys seem like a bunch of Nostradamuses (with better jokes), but this outrage over torture is straight out of Spanish Inquisition.

What do they expect? Soft pillows? A comfortable chair?

Falstaff said...

km: Oh come now. It's perfectly understandable. As long as you continue to pretend that you're invading countries in the interests of freedom and democracy and not because beating up some other nation makes you feel good about yourself, it's only logical to be outraged about this stuff. The real joke, as the New Yorker article establishes, is that torture without trial isn't something Bush & Co. invented, it's part of a grand old tradition.