Iraq Is the Republic of Fear

IPower drills are an especially popular torture device

I have spent nearly two of the three years since Baghdad fell in Iraq. On my last trip, a few weeks back, I flew out of the city overcome with fatalism. Over the course of six weeks, I worked with three different drivers; at various times each had to take a day off because a neighbor or relative had been killed. One morning 14 bodies were found, all with ID cards in their front pockets, all called Omar. Omar is a Sunni name. In Baghdad these days, nobody is more insecure than men called Omar. On another day a group of bodies was found with hands folded on their abdomens, right hand over left, the way Sunnis pray. It was a message. These days many Sunnis are obtaining false papers with neutral names. Sunni militias are retaliating, stopping buses and demanding the jinsiya , or ID cards, of all passengers. Individuals belonging to Shiite tribes are executed.

Under the reign of Saddam Hussein, dissidents called Iraq "the republic of fear" and hoped it would end when Hussein was toppled. But the war, it turns out, has spread the fear democratically. Now the terror is not merely from the regime, or from U.S. troops, but from everybody, everywhere.

Not to detract from this incredibly depressing article, but I was watching an old episode of Lost the other day (Chile is a series behind). They had a scene where one guy tortures another guy - and it made me realize how much the idea of torture has entered into America's psyche. First 24 and now this. Anyway, just a thought. The fact that it is even debated now makes it a scary time and I hope the country comes out of it rejecting it as a value. That is if we don't move slowly but surely to a police state given our endless war...