Sunday, April 19, 2009

Party Like It's 1984

Newsweek.com:

"In "1984," George Orwell's classic novel on the evils of totalitarianism, the agents of Big Brother break down the will of resisters by throwing them in a dreaded torture chamber known as Room 101. The idea behind Room 101 is to expose interrogation subjects to whatever they fear most. The protagonist in the novel, Winston Smith, fears rats. Confronted with a cage full of rats when he enters Room 101, Smith breaks down and betrays his lover, Julia, as an enemy of the state."

" as in Abu Zubaydah's case, had been kept awake with manacles for up to a week at a time, slammed into a wall (but not one that was rock-solid, and no more than 20 or 30 times) and repeatedly doused with cold water (but not colder than 41 degrees!). "In practice, these methods were nothing short of brutal," says Jameel Jaffer, a lawyer for the ACLU. It is likely that the public will continue to learn more as lawsuits and congressional or administration investigations go forward."