> A nation incomparably more civilised
>than forty years ago wouldn't have allowed the conditions that encouraged
>this torture .
FIrst of all a comparison is different from a level - "more civilized" isn't the same as "highly civilized." But did you read the full context of Chomsky's quote? In Vietnam 40 years ago, our gov was dropping chem weapons on food crops and herding people into concentration camps, and there wasn't a peep of protest. Now, revelations of torture are provoking a national crisis. Why is it so hard to acknowledge that this is an improvement (cue to Yoshie - Williams has a Keywords entry on "improve").
Doug