That excellent Oscar winning documentary is the story of Dilwar, mentioned in the Der Speigel article. Maybe the film is not released in Germany, but in the US it's easy to get.

See it!

Why Obama hasn't touched Bagram I don't know or understand. My supposition is that the shadowy "national security state" is running the show behind a curtain. Obama should take charge. He is the commander in chief. If he hasn't seen "Taxi to the Dark Side" he ought to.

The continued abuse, torture, and lack of basic legal rights afforded detainees is inexcusable and scandalous.

Something to read, not about Bagram but about the whole torture regime, is Phillipe Sands' "The Torture Team."

Read Glenn Greenwald, below, on Salon.

Also Bob Herbert in the NYTimes, Sept 15

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/15/opinion/15herbert.html

Also, remember that the oppositional fervor of the "teabaggers" and protesters who turned up by the 10's of thousands in Washington on Saturday are a discontented rabble whose anger is stoked and manipulated by powerful interests - eg former Texas Senator Dick Armey and Rick Scott, formerly of HCA, among others.

Were there black or brown faces in the crowd?

@gusasinaugustus

They don't wear burqas in Istanbul. The burqa refers to the overall head to toe garment with a screen to see through, usually blue - I don't know why, that is worn by women in Afghanistan and apparently, judging by pictures, in parts of Pakistan.

What you probably saw in Istanbul (I've lived in Turkey and speak from direct knowledge)is what the Turks probably call a head scarf or head covering. Some women now wear what is called hijab, a style apparently developed by university students in Egypt in the 1970's, I think. This is the brightly colored scarf worn tightly around the head and neck and covering the shoulders.

Some women would also be wearing long coats. But I bet you saw a lot of women who dressed no differently from women in New York or London or Rome.

This is all very contentious in Turkey as it has been the law that women could not work, or even enter public buildings in head scarves. Most of the universities are public and women still, as far as I know, are not permitted to have their heads covered in class.

If you saw a woman in a burqa she probably was not a Turk, unless some women are borrowing that style from Afghanistan. And women in black with the little face covering that is called a niqab are probably also not Turks.

I know the controversy about women's dress in France uses the term "burqa" but that is not really correct.

Let me add some relevant information to this discussion.

Throughout the Muslim world men as well as women cover their bodies much more than we do in Europe and the Americas and more than people in Eastern Asia.

Pay attention to traditional Muslim garb. Men wear loose pants and often long robes and cloaks. Here's a description of men's clothing in Kandahar, Afghanistan written by Sarah Chayes, an American and former NPR reporter who has lived there since 2002. (She does not wear a burqa, but rather men's style clothing.)

from p 112, "The Punishment of Virtue", Penguin Books, 2006.

"A rough sort of uniform was starting to shake out in Kandahar. [this around 2002]Western-style clothing was coming to be a badge of the new regime. Security officers...wore fatigues, provincial officials wore shirts and ties, even teachers wore Western clothes in school. But they would not be caught dead in them on the street;tight trousers, exposing the shape of a man's legs all the way up to his crotch were just too unseemly by local standards."

Elsewhere she remarks that a police official whom she knew well would take care with his legs even dressed in baggy traditional pants.

Men usually cover their heads too and sometimes pull scarves over their faces. Think about pictures you may have seen from Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Even in the cities of Turkey, Egypt, and Morocco, for example, you don't see men in shorts. No way.

For heaven's sake even Catholic priests dress in long robes.

So women's dress should be seen in some context.

Further, there is copious evidence that the seclusion of women is an ancient tradition, dating back to the earliest civilizations in what is now Iraq.

And what about the dress of Orthodox Jews, both women and men? While Muslim women by choice or decree (Saudi Arabia) cover themselves up outside their homes they may wear provocative clothing underneath. Contrast this with the custom of Orthodox Jews where the women shave their heads and wear wigs in public. An odd reversal - to look conventional in public and bald in private.

I wonder if Naomi Wolf or Phyllis Chessler have commented on dress among Jews.

Much of TSA passenger screening is like the drunk looking for his keys under the street light, not because that's where the keys are but just because that's where the light is.

Surely, the reason the public puts up with it is because we have no choice. To whom can we effectively complain either about some stupidity on the spot - like the story above about a woman being asked to remove her cast!!!! - or about the general apparent wasted effort? If Patrick Smith can direct us many of us would be grateful.

My own little story is on my first post 9/11 flight, Jan 2002, TSA was confiscating lighters, knives etc etc at a great rate. Then inside the "secure" area at Logan International in Boston they were selling Nantucket Nectars in glass bottles. Go figure.