Juan Cole - 11/16/05

Iraqi Prisoner Abuse
Preparations for Cairo Conference

Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari revealed Tuesday that nearly 200 prisoners detained by the Ministry of the Interior had been discovered to have been tortured and half-starved.

The State Department spokesman alleged that the US does not practice torture! And said it did not expect others to do so. But surely Abu Ghraib was a signal to the Iraqi secret police as to what was permissible.

Woman Bomber Unrepentant

Al-Hayat: Sajidah Mubarak Atrus al-Rishawi, who attempted to detonate a belt bomb at the Radisson SAS hotel in Amman last Wednesday night is still unrepentant. She insists that she is fighting "the infidels and apostates from among the Muslims."

Muslims and the 5 Questions

Somebody named Dennis Prager wrote a frankly bigotted op-ed for the LA Times asking "Muslims" 5 questions. The questions are fairly easy to answer in themselves, but the stupidity of the whole framework is what is objectionable. Why is it that our media personalities cannot think their way out of a paper bag? Why don't high school civics courses alert them that there might be a problem with stereotyping everyone that you categorize as belonging to a particular group?