I’m an isolated pocket of international hyperventilation. Are you?
Seymour Hersh’s new Abu Ghraib story is up. Wotth reading, though there’s nothing fundamentally new. Lot of detail about how the investigation was conducted, and some good insight about Rummy as Mr. Micawber.
Most quotable sentence: Rumsfeld, in early 2002, attributing concerns about maltreatment of prisoners to “isolated pockets of international hyperventilation.” Well, I guess if you’re going to be flat-out wrong, you might as well be memorably flat-out wrong.
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
View all posts by Mark Kleiman
Abu Ghraib
Well, by now you’ve either seen the photos or heard about the torture and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of American soldiers at Abu Ghraib (if not, you really should pay more attention to current events). The photos have crea…