Letters to the Editor

Torture prosecutions finally begin in the U.S. The Bush DOJ is actually demanding a 147 year sentence for a Liberian political official who ordered torture inside Liberia. Glenn Greenwald [2008-12-31]

• Orwell, ever prescient

  Acts which, when ordered by Liberians, are "criminal torture" meriting life imprisonment magically become, when ordered by Americans, mere "aggressive interrogation techniques."

  "Another thing that that inquiry, if it ever takes place, will have to deal with is the magical properties of names. Nearly all human beings feel that a thing becomes different if you call it by a different name." - George Orwell

  And,of course,

  "All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side ... The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them." - George Orwell, Notes on Nationalism

  -- Hume's Ghost
  [Read Hume's Ghost's other letters]
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