Thanks to UK’s The Guardian, Susan Sontag is at it again.

Hurray for you!

In my dissertation on viruses in fiction, I have some minor criticisms aimed in her direction. But ever since I can remember, I have always regarded her as my hero – a stylish female intellectual with ethics and a Cruella de Ville stripe in her hair. Wow – the ultimate sexy bookworm.

She was viciously attacked for her essay after the 9-11 attacks, (although it turns out she was right about everything she said). Now she has words about Abu Ghraib, the meaning of photography, the strategic handling of vocabulary, and the war on terror. She talks about the displacement of the reality onto a reaction to the photos. She addresses the issue of torture and the avoidance of using that word. And lest you think she’s only out to attack Bush and be that unpatriotic liberal pansy pinko, her primary comparison is with the avoidance of the word "genocide" by both the UN and Clinton’s administration during the attempted genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda rather than on more familiar Nazi euphenisms and strategies. The biggest strength of her argument rests on her understanding of the uses of language. The policy of "unlawful combatants" enunciated by Rumsfeld as early as January 2002, for example, is that they "do not have any rights under the Geneva convention."

Read her essay: What Have We Done?

Some choice bits:

"To call what took place in Abu Ghraib – and, almost certainly, in other prisons in Iraq and in Afghanistan, and in Guantanamo – by its true name, torture, would likely entail a public investigation, trials, court martials, dishonourable discharges, resignation of senior military figures and responsible cabinet officials, and substantial reparations to the victims. Such a response to our misrule in Iraq would contradict everything this administration has invited the American public to believe about the virtue of American intentions and America’s right to unilateral action on the world stage in defence of its interests and its security."

"This is information-gathering authorised by American military and civilian administrators to learn more of a shadowy empire of evildoers about which Americans know virtually nothing, in countries about which they are singularly ignorant – so that any "information" might be useful. An interrogation which produced no information (whatever the information might consist of) would count as a failure. All the more justification for preparing prisoners to talk. Softening them up, stressing them out – these were the usual euphemisms for the bestial practices that have become rampant in American prisons here "suspected terrorists" are being held. Unfortunately, it seems, more than a few got "too stressed out" and died.

Be careful, dear Ms. Sontag. I worry for your safety.

And you’re still my hero.