Joel Agee on fear

The Price of Fear Is Paid in Lost Freedom:

What impressed me most forcefully in the pictures from Abu Ghraib was how fear was employed as an instrument of torture. Humiliation too — but those photographs were meant to terrify, because they could be used to shame the victims in their communities.

Why has the discussion of these outrages very nearly vanished from public discourse? Does our silence bespeak a tacit consent to their possible continuation? If so, what would be our motive? I believe it is fear — fear of an elusive, treacherous enemy, but also fear of seeing the depths to which we may go for the sake of an equally elusive security.

We need to remember Abu Ghraib. We need to think about why we refuse to think about it. We need to look into that abyss before it swallows us whole.