Sunday, April 24, 2005

Genocide, quote-unquote


The LA Times has the ultimate man-bites-dog headline: “Afghan Says He Wasn’t Tortured at Guantanamo.” Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Still, I’m not sure it’s not something I would be pointing out, if I were him. They did question him for three years, but had only one question: “Do you know Osama?” We really must have the least sophisticated interrogators in the world. The not-very-thorough AP story (which, for example, mentions that he was arrested along with his brother but doesn’t say what became of the brother) says that he was released in Afghanistan. As with a lot of these guys, he was dumped in a country other than the one he was arrested/captured in. A few days ago, someone who had been taken in Bulgaria was deposited on a mountain road in Albania. We’re like the world’s worst travel agent.

When I wrote the last post, about unacknowledged past bad behaviour, I can’t believe I forgot to mention the 90th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, which is today; I had even spotted a quote in the NYT I meant to use: a rep from the Turkish embassy in the US said, “We don’t see what happened as genocide, quote-unquote.” Quote unquote, indeed.



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