> Isn't this a story of how two cultures - both deeply religious and
> anxious about sexuality - are meeting in explosive ways?
I might note that these are not the only deeply religious and anxious-about-sexuality cultures; probably such cultures are in the majority (though some manage to conceal their religiosity and sex anxiety pretty well).
But mainly I am interested in more information (unbiased, if possible) about how the particular "treatments" used at Abu Ghraib (and probably elsewhere) are seen in Arab/Muslim culture/cultures, and whether they were ordered by someone who thought he or she knew something about that culture/those cultures.
Somewhere the other day I saw a comment that it looked as though these treatments were devised by someone who had read that famous book "The Arab Mind" (I don't remember the author's name), because they seem to have come straight out of the discussion of sexuality in it.
More generally, does anyone know of a person besides Juan Cole who knows something about the culture of that part of the world and is commenting on current events? (Old Juan is great on a lot of things, but I get the impression that he is a little too straight-laced to get very deeply into the sexual aspect.)
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ Belinda: Ay, but you know we must return good for evil. Lady Brute: That may be a mistake in the translation.
-- Sir John Vanbrugh: The Provok’d Wife (1697), I.i.