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Some context.

Oh, hey: if you’re swinging by from the Willamette Week story, and you’re wondering about the tersely cryptic excerpt, well, here; and here’s the reason why my desk is groaning today:

He was very afraid, very alone. He had the thinnest arms I had ever seen. His whole body trembled. His wrists were so thin we couldn’t put handcuffs on him. As I saw him for the first time and led him to the interrogation, I felt sorry. The interrogation specialists threw water over him and put him into a car, drove him around through the extremely cold night. Afterwards, they covered him with mud and showed him to his imprisoned father, on whom they’d tried other interrogation methods.

They hadn’t been able to get him to speak, though. The interrogation specialists told me that after the father saw his son in this condition, his heart was broken, he started crying, and he promised to tell them anything they wanted.

—Sgt. Samuel Provance, 302nd Military Intelligence Battalion

Of course, I don’t know why I’m so angry today. We’ve known we were capable of this particular damnation for over a year now.

(This is, indeed, more of a literary blog than anything else, I suppose. But what passes for politics these days has a nasty habit of getting in the way.)

—Filed 2248 days ago to ; .

  1. I am angry too. We forget that US contractors were protagonists of several causes of abuse in Serbia, even buying and selling teenage girls.
    Sad and angry.
    — Camilo    Jul 7, 08:38 AM    #
  2. Torturing children.
    And the atrocities continue, now just torturing children! We have now that children torture does indeed exist:Norwegian authorities reacted with...
    — Mercurial    Jul 7, 08:47 AM    #
  3. Madness At Abu Ghraib
    How can our political leaders ask our soldiers to abuse children at Abu Ghraib. The thought alone is sickening. Senator Joe Biden has disagreed with the neoconservatives in the Bush administration, but has called them "patriotic Americans." I don't b...

    — Last Day of My Life    Jul 7, 09:21 AM    #
  4. Congrats on the WW nod. And yes, anger. All day, all night, all year, anger has become a constant hum behind my thoughts, even as I play with the kids or read a good book. I know out there, crimes are being committed with the financial support of my taxes. Nothing against taxation per se, of course; just wish it'd go to, y'know, schools or something nicer.

    Question is: What do we do with this anger? Something tells me waiting until November to vote for centrists Democrats with good hair just ain't enough.
    — Kevin Moore    Jul 7, 10:12 AM    #
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