reactions

"The ashes of Algeria sleep framed in these photos. Those whose memory is longest recognized the practices of the nazis in the ghettos, the gratuitous cruelty that consisted in humiliated Jews by forcing them into obnoxious strip-teases." — commentaries on the torture photos by Le Monde editor Eric Fottorino, whose self indulgences lead him far astray in to-day's issue.

"Either these goons were acting on someone's authority, in which case there is a layer of mid- to high-level people who think that they are not bound by the laws and codes and standing orders. Or they were acting on their own authority, in which case they are the equivalent of mutineers, deserters, or traitors in the field. This is why one asks wistfully if there is no provision in the procedures of military justice for them to be taken out and shot." — Christopher Hitchens on the torture scandal