Torture Revisited

Newly released images of naked prisoners, some bloodied and lying on the floor, threatened to revive public anger over abuse by U.S. guards at Abu Ghraib prison at a time when tensions with the West are already running high in the Middle East. … One of the video clips depicted a group of naked men with bags over their heads standing together and masturbating. The network said the men were forced to participate. … Some key Iraqi officials urged their countrymen to react calmly since the pictures were old and the offenders had been punished.

Robert H. Reid, AP, The Guardian, Iraqis Urge Calm Over Abu Ghraib Images

Yesterday, reports of new photographs of torture at Abu Ghraib began to surface. And today, Salon reports that it has acquired “hundreds of images that have never been publicly released” — and shows us some of them.

This morning, the UN said that US interrogation and detention of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay amounts to torture. It called on the US to try or to release detainees immediately — and to close the camp.

We’ve done two shows on torture, the second one asking the same set of questions we’ve been seeing in the last two days: Should the media be opening this story back up? Does a fuller accounting get us anywhere in the war on terror? Did we get a full accounting in the first place? We’re not thinking of another torture show any time soon, but take a listen to these two shows and tell us where you stand now.

Torture, Still, Again

Abu Ghraib Take Two