Summarizing Bergen’s article, I would ask: what will characterize the foreboding legal backlash of America’s fight against the war on terror? How can America ensure its democracy when its governmental practices stand to contradict these very values? These questions are made all the more relevant as communication technology allows the rapid transmission of news around the world. Living in West Africa, engaging in daily conversation with locals of a predominantly Muslim faith, I was grounded to learn just how fluid media and readily accessible news of the West had become. One man spoke fervently of his hate towards Bush and his love for Bill Clinton, as the former president had come to visit the African motherland on multiple ... More »

Journalist Matt Bai ably summarizes America's information deficit today when he says, "...the greatest threat to democracy we face now is this impulse to want to confirm what we believe rather than to challenge our preconceptions to tell difficult truths. The more uncertain things become, the more people want to tell you what you want to hear." Indeed, the speed with which the torture debate in America has deteriorated towards incomprehension is astounding. Real, challenging, journalism, however, is not dead. As corporate media has gradually eschewed long-form, investigative reporting, a non-profit journalism sector has emerged to fill the gap--the Center for Investigative Reporting, for example, produces regular, ... More »

I will concede Oliver Kamm's point that "there is no supranational sovereign authority that can effectively implement the body of international law." One need only look at the UN Security Council's haggard attempts to quell the current violence in Darfur to be reassured of the limitations of international bodies of justice. Kamm's endorsment of rendition on pragmatic grounds, however, fails to address a fundamental flaw in the American and European approaches to the war on terror. Terrorism, as represented by the 9/11 attacks, is as much a game of ideology as it is tactical. And every time the international news media carries the story of a wrongfully accused, wrongfully tortured, suspect of terrorism, see this ... More »

Sharrock challenges us to reevaluate our priorities, our moral character, and our sense of justice. Her article forces us to live in a torturer’s shoes and experience the moment when an ordinary man decides whether to follow his superior’s orders or follow his own moral conscience. Of course, we have all made painful compromises between work and life. Allbright’s story shifts responsibility, however, away from the practitioners of torture towards American foreign policy in general, asking the US military to reconsider the types of situations it puts its soldiers in. While we all wish to claim immunity from the temptation to inflict pain on others, we will never know what we are capable of until faced with the choice between ... More »

Zimbardo argues that every human being has the capacity to commit good and evil. Rwanda, Nazi Germany, and the Khmer Rouge are all examples where ordinary human beings, bearing the weight of powerful social dynamics, metastasize into monsters for the sake of self-assurance and self-preservation. Zimbardo helps us imagine a world so lawless, extreme, dire, and challenges us to embrace, however uncomfortably, a basic set of moral values, a social contract to allow us to coexist peacefully. Some, however, might consider such reactionary morality just another form of prison.

In a worthy attempt to paint an unbiased portrait of US interrogation techniques post 9/11, LinkTV collages an impressive medley of media outlets depicting the world's words on torture. Global Pulse reminds us of the importance to conscientiously consume news and the growing vault between global and domestic reporting.

Kristof asks America to be more "civilized" in its approach to torture. As he describes in painful detail Sami alHajj's hunger strike in Guantanamo Bay, our sense of morale plummets knowing that America's foreign policy poses far more of a threat than any of its "suspected terrorists" cajoled into spying on the Middle East in the name of heightened national security.

Nino Scalia questions, “Is it really so easy to determine that smacking someone in the face to determine where he has hidden the bomb that is about to blow up Los Angeles is prohibited in the constitution? How close does the threat have to be? And how severe can the infliction of pain be?” But to what end and at what cost? And once those innocently convicted are set free from Gitmo prison camps, for example, how is America to resolve such spawned, exacerbated global animosity against the very principles that its constitution espouses? Perhaps we need to think a little harder for less-costly alternatives, rather than writing our own death sentence to an already ill-fated future.