{"id":1273,"date":"2005-10-19T08:55:34","date_gmt":"2005-10-19T15:55:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2005\/10\/answering_the_torture_question\/"},"modified":"2005-10-19T08:55:34","modified_gmt":"2005-10-19T15:55:34","slug":"answering_the_torture_question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2005\/10\/answering_the_torture_question.html","title":{"rendered":"ANSWERING THE TORTURE QUESTION"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You had to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wgbh\/pages\/frontline\/torture\/\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>see it<\/strong><\/font><\/A> to believe it. There it was on the tube last night, Frontline&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wgbh\/pages\/frontline\/torture\/etc\/synopsis.html\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>&#8220;The Torture Question,&#8221;<\/strong><\/font><\/a> documenting more clearly than ever <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/tg\/detail\/-\/0521853249\/ref=pd_sim_b_2\/104-5618531-0340703?%5Fencoding=UTF8&#038;v=glance\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>what we already knew<\/strong><\/font><\/a>, what everybody knows by now, that Abu Ghraib was &#8220;a kind of &#8216;Animal House&#8217; on the nightshift&#8221; (to quote former Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger).<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wgbh\/pages\/frontline\/torture\/talk\/\" class=inline target=new\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Prisoner at Abu Ghraib\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/archives\/Prisoner%20at%20Abu%20Ghraib.jpg\" width=140 align=left border=0 \/> <\/a>Except that Schlesinger&#8217;s analogy, however well intended, fails to communicate what really happened, and how far up the chain of command responsibility went. No mystery there, of course. It went right to the very top.  Today you can <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wgbh\/pages\/frontline\/torture\/view\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>watch online at noon ET<\/font><\/strong><\/a>, when the documentary will be posted. See how the  rule of law was perverted. See how the United States was turned into a Banana Republic by a regime with its head up its ass. In the meantime, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wgbh\/pages\/frontline\/torture\/talk\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>join the discussion<\/strong><\/font><\/a>, which is available now.<br \/>\n<i>&#8212; Tireless Staff of Thousands<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You had to &#8220;The Torture Question,&#8221; documenting more clearly than ever Except that Schlesinger&#8217;s analogy, however well intended, fails to communicate what really happened, and how far up the chain of command responsibility went. No mystery there, of course. It went right to the very top. Today you can join the discussion, which is available [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1273","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-kx","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1273\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}