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Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates - Ta-Nehisi Coates is a senior editor for The Atlantic, where he writes about culture, politics, and social issues for TheAtlantic.com and the magazine. He is the author of the memoir The Beautiful Struggle. More

Born in 1975, the product of two beautiful parents. Raised in West Baltimore—not quite The Wire, but sometimes ill all the same. Studied at the Mecca for some years in the mid-’90s. Emerged with a purpose, if not a degree. Slowly migrated up the East Coast with a baby and my beloved, until I reached the shores of Harlem. Wrote some stuff along the way.

Proud of Torture

By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Aug 30 2011, 11:00 AM ET Comment

It's amazing, though it shouldn't be, to see the former vice-president of the United States arguing that the government still should be torturing people, and that torture is one of the things he's proudest of. I think the worst thing about the Obama administration's "looking forward" doctrine is that it virtually guarantees that torture will happen again--perhaps even under the very next administration. 

It not simply that modern America officially condones torture, it is that modern America condemns torture when executed by people we don't like, and calls it "enhanced interrogation" when we do it. Media has, in disgraceful fashion, bought this Orwellian line. I fully expect to see more enhanced interrogation in my lifetime. I would not be shocked to see it filter down to law enforcement. Foreign terrorists are not the only people who kill.


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